


Like a Summer with a Thousand Julys

by TheFlashFic



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Hartley friendly, Other relationships exist as in current canon, Past Cisco Ramon/Hartley Rathaway, Past Hartmon was incredibly unhealthy so not tagging it, So background Iris/Eddie, Stalking, and one-sided Barry/Iris, brief joe/sherry fantasy scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:01:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 54,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFlashFic/pseuds/TheFlashFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe finds himself being drawn to the last person he ever would have expected, but a dark spot from Cisco's past threatens to to end things before they can even begin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First things first: this is canon compliant through 1x13, and then it goes astray. That means all the characters are just like canon, which means there's a 21 year age difference in the main pair. If that bothers you, now's the time to head out. Cisco is 23 years old, young but a fully consenting adult all the same, and the age difference is acknowledged (repeatedly, in poor Joe's head) and dealt with respectfully, I'd like to think. This is NC-17. You stand warned. 
> 
> Second, this was originally based on a prompt (that ended up playing second to the Joe/Cisco relationship) about an old, unhealthy relationship leaving its marks in Cisco and his dealing with it with the help of a new relationship. So the Hartmon in his past is unhealthy, and Hartley is very much a present-tense bad guy in this. In the second half there's stalking, talk of past mental abuse, and some off screen violence. The resolution to that storyline isn't the greatest, fair warning. There's not always justice.
> 
> Music is a big element in this story, which I didn't plan but I love. Hence the title, which comes from a classic called You Go To My Head. If you listen to the [ Joe Pass/Ella Fitzgerald version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2YJn97bdOo) on repeat while you read this, you won't regret it. Not because it helps the story, it's just a really great song.

His phone beeped instead of buzzed.

Joe’s heart rate jumped in conditioned response. He grabbed the phone and swiped the screen. Barely registered the oddness of 'Cisco Ramon' being the name beside the little text bubble.

The words in the bubble were _Hey, so what happened with Miss Sherry?_

Joe looked around for his jacket as he pushed the button to call the number back. Keys, badge was in his wallet in his pocket, gun was locked in the drawer.

The phone rang five times before the call was answered. Despite the text he just sent Cisco sounded utterly baffled to hear from him. “Joe?”

“What do you mean? Did something happen at Barry's old house? We didn't get a call to go out there.”

“What?” Cisco puffed a breath into the phone a moment later that Joe realized was laughter. “Hey, no, I was just asking, like, what happened? Did you get her number?”

He blinked at that and stopped looking around. “Sherry’s number?”

“Her phone number.” Cisco sounded amused. “Man, are you ever a cop.”

“Her phone number.” Joe dropped into his chair, glancing around to make sure the station was still calm around him as his own urgency died a slow death. “You texted. I don't get texts.”

“Like, ever?”

“Rarely. Texting means emergencies. Even my kids know to call me if they need me.”

“Oh, man. Sorry. Didn't know. I text _everybody_.” Cisco sounded like he was moving around on his end. “I don’t get calls. Before Barry I never made calls, either. Like you might be the first person I’ve actually talked to on this phone outside of work people and emergencies. But. Mental note made: no texting Joe anymore.”

Joe sighed, his heart rate slowing back to normal as Cisco chattered in his ear.

“So?”

“So...?”

“Sherry, man.”

Joe laughed faintly. “Why do you want Sherry’s number? Do I have to give you a talk?”

Cisco echoed the laugh.

He seemed to be the kind of person who was constantly amused. Joe knew people like that, but many of them seemed to direct their laughter at other people. Cisco was different, from what Joe could tell. His amusement wasn’t aimed at Joe, it was more...expressing general pleasure with a world in which Joe existed to ask apparently stupid questions.

“I'm asking if _you_ got her number. _I_ was not the one she was Mrs. Robinsoning all over. But she was hot, and she seemed like a nice lady. So are you gonna get some of that sinful daiquiri or what?”

She did seem like a nice lady. And it was refreshing being checked out so thoroughly by someone who was open and blatant about doing exactly that. But he shook his head. “No, no. She's part of a case.”

Cisco breathed another faint laugh. “She's like peripherally part of it, at best, and the case is both fifteen years old and unofficial.”

“No," he said again, firm. He reached out and locked the gun drawer that he’d unlocked a minute ago in his text panic, and pale overhead lights glittered off the ring on his finger. “I don't do that.”

There was a pause. Cisco wanted to ask, Joe could hear it in the silence.

Joe didn't want to talk about it. “I'm surprised you even asked. I thought you were ticked off at me.”

“Huh? Oh, about...nah. I mean, yeah, but no. You're wrong about Doctor Wells, that's a given. But now that we've got old-man-Barry blood at the scene obviously there's some funky stuff happening, so I get how the weirdness would make you suspect crazy things.”

Poor kid. The truth would break his heart, Joe suspected. He had no doubt, Barry’s blood or not, that the full truth about Harrison Wells was going to be an ugly thing. His biggest hope through the investigation he was running on the sly was that he could minimize the damage that truth would do to the people around him.

“So you're forgiven, and it was kinda cool being a cop for a little while, feel free to call me anytime you need a sidekick.”

He smiled at that. “Considering I started that day with nothing but hunches and ended it with fifteen-year-old DNA samples and actual in-progress 3D crime scene photos, that's an offer I'm gonna take you up on.”

“Awesome.” Cisco's reply was bright, a little stretched, as if his answering grin was so big it distorted his words. “Great. You've got my number.”

The evidence and Cisco's all-around brilliance wasn’t the only reason why Joe would work with him again. There was something nice, and all-too-rare, about being around someone with that much enthusiasm inside of him. Watching that kid’s excitement droop and his smiles vanish after Joe confessed his suspicion of Wells, that had been the worst part of the last few days.

That weight left his shoulders as he hung up the phone and sat, grinning, at his desk. Until Eddie walked past grousing about there being nothing to smile about, and Singh stuck his head out to shout them to a robbery just three blocks east of the station. And life happened, the way it always seemed to.

 

* * *

 

He woke up late on his off day to find that the power had gone out overnight and his phone died on its useless charger. When he plugged it in in the car on the way to the store the beep of a half dozen texts registering at once made him pull the car over in alarm.

But the series of bubbles waiting for him made him laugh, and quieted his racing heartbeat.

_Hey, I’ve got a question for you when you have a sec._   
_OH MY GOD I TEXTED YOU I FORGOT_   
_I'M SO SORRY THIS IS NOT AN EMERGENCY NO ONE IS DEAD_   
_I MEAN PEOPLE ARE DEAD THAT'S THE WORLD WE LIVE IN BUT NO ONE IMPORTANT_   
_I mean everyone's important but just none of this is an emergency_   
_I should stop sending these, shouldn’t I?_

Joe dialed, setting the brake on the car after he pulled a little closer to the curb.

“Oh my god, are you mad?”

He chuckled. “This must be some kind of important question you’ve got.”

“It is!” Cisco sounded calmer instantly, and as cheerful as ever. “Bootsy Collins.”

Joe blinked. “Is that a question? Or have you been hacking into my google search history or something?”

“Um, rude, I would never. Bootsy’s Funk Unity League Band. They’re playing St. Louis this weekend.”

“Been sold out for three weeks, and no, I can’t get tickets. Police badges don’t work that way.” Not that he hadn’t thought about trying.

“No, I mean, I _have_ tickets. Caitlin gave them to me, because she’s amazing. Early birthday thing. Except she hates funk because she’s also _soulless_ , and Barry mentioned it’s the kind of music you dig, so I thought I’d see if you wanted to road trip.”

It took Joe a minute to process a few different things about that. “You have tickets to see Bootsy three hours’ drive from here, and you’re asking me to go with you?”

“Hey, funk’s an unappreciated genre these days, us fans have to stick together. And you let me play cop for a day, I owe you one.”

He shook his head, smiling uncontrollably. “You realize it was you doing _me_ the favor that day, right?”

“Well, whatever. If it helps we’d be taking your car, because the way mine’s been shaking lately makes me think bussing it would actually be safer.”

It did help. Joe couldn’t quite piece together that grinning young kid being a fan of a 70s legend, or inviting Joe West of all people to go see a show. But if he needed Joe’s car that made it an exchange of favors, which was easier to swallow. Not an _equal_ exchange, because it was Bootsy and Joe was seriously disappointed he couldn’t score a ticket on his own. But if he paid for gas and a couple of meals, too, that would help even things out. A little.

“It’s cool either way, I just figured I’d ask.” Cisco still sounded cheerful, but a little muted, and Joe realized he let the pause go on too long. “I can always see if someone else wants--”

“You give that ticket to anyone else and I will personally see to it that you never again drive a mile without getting ticketed.”

Cisco laughed. “That’s what I’m talking about. Road trip. Call your criminals and tell them to keep it down Saturday, we got places to be.”

“Yeah, you spread the word to your metahumans.”

“Oop, I gotta go, got some results coming back. See you Saturday, I’ll text you details.”

Joe opened his mouth to remind him not to text, but Cisco was already gone. He grinned, tossing the phone on the passenger seat, and as he got back on the road he flipped through the CDs in the changer until he heard the familiar wah-wahs of a George Duke album starting up.

 

* * *

 

The beep, followed quickly by a second beep, made Joe tense. But that was quick to fade when he saw the name on the screen.

_Is three hours a long enough drive to justify full road trip supplies?_   
_DAMN IT._

Joe was still shaking his head when the phone buzzed a moment later. “You know, for a genius you have some real memory problems.”

“I remembered faster this time, at least. You are battling old instincts, my friend.”

“You’re thirteen, how old can your instincts be?”

“Ouch, okay? I’m _fif_ teen, and they assign phones in the nursery at the hospital these days. I’ve been texting as long as I’ve been talking.”

Joe fumbled to turn the phone’s speaker on, and set it on the counter. “Remind me not to make age jokes when it just brings home to me how old I am.”

“With pleasure. So, what do you think?”

“About what?” He leaned into the fridge to pull out a package of andouille and the rest of the peppers he needed to slice up.

“Road trip. Do we qualify?”

“Three hours there, three hours back? I’d say.”

“Right, right, we have to come _back_. Should we crash there overnight? It’ll be late.”

Joe considered that, unwrapping the sausage. “Overnight trips are tough to plan in my line of work. Let’s see how the criminal world’s looking that night. Plan either way.”

“I can be flexible. Makes for better road trips. Am I on speaker?”

“Yeah, I’m cooking.”

“I love being on speaker. Makes me feel like I’m running a presentation. Oh, or narrating the movie of your life. ‘In a world where metahumans run wild, one man dares to cook himself dinner...’”

“Well.” Joe chuckled. “I’ve had worse background music while I cook, I’ll admit. I’ve had way better, though.”

“Oh, you want me to sing? That’s a dangerous road to go down, man. Wait, you’re cooking. This is important: is there an apron involved? Like one of those seriously frilly deals that’s way too small but someone got it for you as a gag gift years ago and you wear it all the time and it’s hilarious?”

“No apron, sorry.” Joe started on the bell peppers.

“So we’re equally disappointing to each other this evening, good to know.”

“You only say that ‘cause you’re not sampling what I’m cooking.”

“You can make good food without a frilly apron?” Cisco sounded honestly dubious, which just stretched Joe’s grin wider.

“I’ve been feeding two kids most of their lives, can’t be that bad at it.”

“Two very, very skinny kids.”

That was true enough, so Joe didn’t argue. Instead, he surprised himself: “Well, if you’re gonna lay down a challenge like that you may as well come try some.”

There was a pause, a beat. But if Cisco was surprised at the offer it didn’t register in his voice. “I’d ask what you’re making but let’s be honest, no matter what it’ll be better than the winner of the mac-n-cheese-or-ramen debate I’ve been pondering the last twenty minutes. Should I bring anything?”

“Appetite.” Joe smiled. “Maybe some bread, something crusty.”

“Got ya covered. Hey! If I--”

“No.”

A beat. “How’d you know--?”

“I don’t need an apron, I’m a very neat cook, so no I will not wear one if you bring one. Frilly or otherwise.”

“Daaaaang. Gonna have to check you for freaky meta mind-reading skills.” Cisco sounded endlessly pleased, though. “Right, lemme jet. Crusty bread awaits.”

Cheerfully, Joe reached out and swiped the screen to end the call and got back to his peppers.

 

* * *

 

He got along with people. He always had. He was an amiable man, respectful, and that went pretty far in his line of work. Cops saw the worst of the world every day, and personalities tended to get exaggerated after a while. Joe had seen some tense rookies become tightly-wound, hair-trigger cops, the worst kind to have. He watched people with tempers become intolerant, he saw men and women who were already prone to melancholy become utterly depressed by the work.

He also saw a lot of decent people become terrific officers, and hopefully when people looked at him that’s what they saw too.

It was easy for him not to get disillusioned with the job: he raised the two greatest kids a man could ever hope to raise, and if he ever had doubts about himself he only had to see Iris or Barry to know that his life had made the world better, if only through them.

Still, on the job or off, Joe had always been pretty social, friendly. Open.

So it was strange for him to realize when he let Cisco Ramon into the house that it was the first time anyone walked through the door to visit him in...a really, really long time.

Strange because this was Barry’s friend. This was the kid who made Barry’s fancy suits and monitored his vitals and came up with plans to help him save people. This kid was Barry’s.

But as he walked through the door Cisco’s friendly brown eyes landed on Joe and his grin stretched wide and he didn’t seem remotely curious about whether Barry was even around. He smiled at Joe like Joe was the one and only person he wanted to hang out with, like it would never have occurred to him to think of Joe as Barry’s foster dad first and foremost.

He stretched out a brown paper bag proudly. “Bread. And I don’t know what the _hell_ it is you think you’re cooking in there, but you didn't make nearly enough to fill the bottomless pit that opened up inside me the minute I smelled it.”

Joe took the bag and peered in, sniffing approvingly at the yeasty flour of bread so fresh it was still warm. “Where did you find hot sourdough this time of night?”

“Those of us who do not cook must learn to feed ourselves in other ways,” Cisco answered solemnly, though his grin was back the moment he was done speaking. “I got secrets. I got hookups.”

“Oh, you got hookups.” Joe took the bread into the kitchen. “Come on in, not like you don’t know where everything is already.”

But Cisco was slow to follow, and he took in everything around him like he really hadn’t ever been there before.

He looked the same as always. He was wearing a horrible pair of orange cords that Joe had seen him in before, and a t-shirt with an inexplicable design on it, some science reference or some damn thing Joe wasn’t supposed to understand. His long hair was tied back, which wasn’t normal, but he looked casual and easy-going as ever.

Except he was in Joe’s house to visit Joe, and that was new.

Joe hadn’t thought about it in those terms, since the invitation slipped out so easily and was so easily accepted. But this was...actually really strange. Wasn’t it?

That thought came in the moments between his moving ahead of Cisco and Cisco joining him at the counter, but Cisco’s easy grin and casual interest in the things on the stove made it fade again fast.

“So? What is it and how does something made with human hands smell this good?”

“You speak flattery like someone who’s used to relying on other people’s cooking. It’s just red beans and rice. With some andouille that might actually be of divine origins; I can’t testify to that either way, I get it from a butcher downtown.” He lifted the lid on the pot and inhaled with satisfaction. “That’s the trick, kid: get good enough sausage and the rest is cake.”

“If I ever need to pretend like I know how to cook, that’ll be helpful to remember.”

“You better know how to wash dishes or set tables, at least.”

Cisco saluted, drawing in another deep sniff before heading off behind Joe to rattle around in cabinets. “So you were making up this feast all for yourself?”

“I like to cook on the rare occasions I don’t just grab Big Belly at midnight after a late shift.”

Joe stirred the pot and listened to the footsteps behind him, the clink of dishes. It was a familiar sound, but getting rarer these days. Normally it would be Barry talking about his day, or Iris telling stories about work to make him laugh. But neither of them made it home for meals much anymore. Even Barry since he moved back in still spent most evenings out.

Joe shook away any potential melancholy from those thoughts. His kids were grown, busy, and living the full lives he wanted for them. Nothing to be sad about.

“Normally this would feed me the rest of the week,” he said as he turned to grab a bowl to ladle the hot red beans and rice into. He would’ve just eaten right from the pot, but. Company.

“Yeah, I’m gonna feel kind of guilty when that doesn’t happen.”

By the time Joe got the entree on the table, Cisco had found a platter and sliced an entire loaf of sourdough in perfect, thick-cut pieces. He laid them out in staggered display like a professional. Joe watched him pre-slice some butter to soften it and stared at him with eyebrows raised.

Cisco just grinned, entirely unselfconscious. “I worked back of house for this really, really shitty French restaurant for spending money during college. Can’t cook to save my life but I can make food look totally great after someone else makes it.”

Joe shrugged, amused, and went to the fridge. “Beer or soda?”

“Are you gonna card me if I say beer?”

“Maybe.” Joe pulled out two bottles.

Food dished out, they sat. Joe had a moment, right after his butt touched the chair, of again wondering if there was something about this that should have felt weirder than it did.

But silence didn’t have a chance to fall, and things didn’t have a chance to start feeling sideways.

Cisco dished himself out a flatteringly huge portion of beans and rice, and as soon as the plate was back on the table in front of him he jumped into conversation. “So. I’m not acting like any of this is my business, but I want to ask you something anyway. Feel totally free to tell me to shove it.”

Joe raised his eyebrows, waiting.

The kid stuck a forkful of food in his mouth, and his eyes went round. He instantly held up a hand to stall further conversation.

Joe grinned, pleased, as Cisco shoved a few more bites in about as fast as it was possible to chew and swallow. Joe had a bite of his own meal, and it was tasty as ever but this was a standard dish for him, he wasn’t as impressed with himself as his guest seemed to be.

After a few more mouthfuls, Cisco let out an audible sigh. “I wondered. I asked myself how rude you’d think I was being if I brought a bottle of hot sauce with me. I mean, not because I had doubts but because I always bring hot sauce, even to restaurants. But then I thought: you know, I bet if anyone knows how to actually season a meal it’s Joe.”

“And you were right.” Joe lofted a forkful of rice in toast. “But for the record, I would have understood. I’ve been known to decline invitations to dinner parties because I knew the people cooking don’t understand that there’s more to life than salt and pepper.”

“Hear hear.” Cisco returned the spicy salute and had another bite.

Joe watched him with a smile. His kids were too used to his standard meals to enjoy them so much, and Joe hadn’t cooked for anyone but them in years.

“So?” he said finally, when Cisco paused to have a swallow of beer. “You were gonna ask me something?”

“Right!” Cisco set the bottle down and sighed his contentment. “‘I don’t do that.’”

Joe blinked. “You don’t ask questions?”

“Huh? No. You said that, on the phone yesterday. ‘I don’t do that.’”

Joe knew at once what he was talking about. He just had to figure out how he felt about it.

“Like I said, tell me to mind my own business if you want to.” Cisco studied him, gripping his fork as if subconsciously wanting to dive back into the meal and fighting the urge best he could. “Just. Every time Barry talks about his family, it’s Joe and Iris. Nobody else. I know what happened with his parents, but...”

Joe nodded slowly.

Cisco waited.

“Iris’s mother…”

“Is she dead?” Cisco was nice enough to avert his eyes as he asked, looking at his half-empty plate as if to give Joe a moment for some kind of private reaction.

But Joe didn’t need it. “No.”

“No?” Surprise lifted those dark brown eyes again.

Joe sat back, had a draw from his beer. “We were married almost two years before Iris came along. Married young, fresh out of college. Younger than Iris is now. But we were solid. Jackie’s the one Iris got her creativity from. She was a poet, and a good one.” He hesitated, feeling his story going scattered. He didn’t tell this often enough to have a set path.

“Once Iris was born, something happened. Jackie changed. She handed Iris off to anyone she could, took off longer and longer periods of time. She had never had strong feelings about being a mother, but the whole time she was pregnant she never seemed reluctant. So I didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t talk about it. Didn’t talk about much of anything. Things got tense with me and her. I’d come home from a long shift and find someone I barely knew sitting in our apartment taking care of my two month old baby girl, no idea where Jackie was or when she’d be back.”

Cisco listened, a quiet kind of interest in his face.

“One night when Iris was maybe nine months old I came home and found a party. Absolutely no one there I knew, just some near-stranger Jackie asked to babysit, who called a bunch of her alcoholic friends. I was...they didn’t even know where Iris was when I asked, had to shake someone awake to tell me she was sleeping in the spare room. Alone in the middle of a bed she could have rolled off of, or…”

He let out a breath, feeling tense at the memory of it. He wasn’t prone to fits of anger, but he got downright physical shoving those people out of his house that night.

“Jackie showed up two days later. We had...an argument.” Understatement, but Joe could see on Cisco’s face that that was obvious. “She took off again, and this time she didn’t come back. A few months later I heard from her mom that she was in treatment. They still called it postpartum depression in those days. I think it’s something fancier now. Either way, Jackie got in touch after a few more months. Said she was getting better, she loved me, but she couldn’t be a mother. She was terrified of it.”

Joe hesitated. He didn’t normally go into so much detail. But Cisco listened, his eyes wide and interested, and he was proving to be really easy to talk to.

Still, he didn’t much feel like reliving that particular period of his history at any great length. “We’ve been divorced since that year.”

Cisco’s gaze drifted down to Joe’s hand.

Joe smiled, straightening his fingers and looking at the ring. “This hasn’t represented Jackie for me for a long, long time. This means family. It means my baby comes before everything else. Both my kids.”

“That’s cool,” Cisco said, speaking those casual words with genuine sincerity. “But...I don’t get it.”

“What?”

“What it’s got to do with Sherry of the sinful daiquiris, and ‘I don’t do that’.”

“Well. I suppose it’s...mostly an excuse, really.” Joe thought about it. “At first because of Jackie, then Iris, then for simplicity. And now it’s just...late. Too late.”

“Yeah, that seems incorrect to me, man.”

Joe shrugged. “I never felt like I was missing out on anything, being a single dad. I get all the love I could want. I’ve been on a few dates, here and there, mostly when some well-meaning friend suckered me into meeting their ‘friend’. But it’s a complication I’m fine doing without.”

Cisco studied him, brow furrowed, but he humphed out a breath and smiled after a moment. “If you’re happy.”

“I am.”

It was the truth. There were a lot of quiet nights, but when Joe weighed the loneliness that came from missing his kids with the uncertain complications of trying to invite some stranger into his life, the scales tilted in an obvious way. They had tilted that way even before Barry got superpowers from a lightning bolt and injected a thousand more complications into their lives.

He looked across the table at Cisco, studying him in return. It occurred to him that although he trusted Cisco with a hell of a lot, and he liked him, he didn’t actually know much about him. “So, what about you?”

Caught in mid-chew, Cisco just tilted his head in question.

“I know Wells was married for a while. Caitlin’s got a fiance who’s...a situation. Barry...has…”

“Mmm.”

“Mmm.” They traded meaningful looks. Joe chuckled. “But what about you?”

Cisco, surprisingly, flushed. “Well. I don’t...it’s been…” He hesitated, looking down at his food like it had some kind of answer. “I hit kind of a rocky point a while back, and I haven’t got back on the horse yet.”

“Oh yeah? Why not?”

"It's just not that easy." He looked up after a moment, his smile was back in place. “You ever see one of those videos on like Youtube or Facebook of a baby giraffe taking its first steps?”

Joe blinked.

“You know…” Cisco leaned in, fork forgotten in his hand as he gestured. “They’re these little lumps of wet brown fur and giant eyes, and they try to push up on these long legs that are all knees, and they just flop around for a while. Try to stand, legs splay out in all directions, collapse on their awkward little newborn butts. Like they’re nothing but clumsy impossible bodies and they’re pathetic and ridiculous?”

“I guess? I’m sure I’ve seen something like it.” Joe shook his head, caught by the way Cisco gestured and waved and tried with surprising accuracy to simulate long flailing legs with his fingers.

“That’s my hormones.” Cisco shrugged. “My game is at newborn-giraffe-on-Youtube level.”

Joe laughed. He laughed a lot when Cisco was around, but this one hit him hard. It welled up, strong and loud, from somewhere down deep. It shook his shoulders until he had to set his fork down.

Maybe because it was easy to picture. Maybe because of the twist of wryness in Cisco’s grin as he tried to illustrate the exact kind of flailing his level of game involved.

“But hey,” Cisco’s face flushed a shade darker as Joe’s laughter refused to slow. His grin was so broad it made his eyes squint. “Somewhere out there is someone who finds newborn giraffe videos totally hot, and... _wow,_ okay, I didn’t think that statement through, hang on…”

Joe sank back in his chair, roaring.

Cisco gave up after a moment, laughing along with him.

Joe had to wipe his eyes before he could collect himself. “Speaking as someone…” He hesitated, shaking his head, letting a last few chuckles out. “Man. Speaking as someone who raised the most giraffish boy in the world, I’d say there’s hope for you.”

“What, Barry? Barry’s like 6’2 and - forgive me - totally hot. Not the same thing. He’s a giraffe people want to take home with them. I’m the one they press their noses against the glass at the zoo to laugh at before going on to something more interesting.”

“Hey, you’re...christ, how old are you?”

“Twenty-four.” Cisco’s chin rose proudly. “Almost. Soon. Ish.”

“Oh, Jesus.” More than half Joe’s age, at least. But younger than Joe’s kids. Definitely no more age jokes allowed. “Well, you’re young enough, you’ve got time to work out all the kinks in your game.”

“Maybe, if I live to be a thousand...no, I mean, I know, I’m not really worried about it or anything. Like you said, I don’t feel like I’m missing all that much. The work and Barry take up so much time, anything else would get pushed aside, right? Easier without the complications.”

Joe didn’t quite buy those words: there was wistfulness audible in Cisco’s voice. “Just how bad was that rocky period you mentioned?”

Cisco waved a hand. “I’ve got really great taste in a lot of things. Music, movies, obviously clothes. But I’m bad at people. Sometimes I find really lousy people.”

“Been there. Not since before Jackie, but I remember it well.”

Cisco smiled faintly. “Not great dinner conversation, is it?”

Joe shrugged. Not any worse than detailing what happened to break up his marriage and leave his daughter without a mom around. But Cisco’s smile was strained, so Joe let it rest. Everyone’s ghosts affected them differently.

“Well. So what else do you have going on? You have family around here?”

“Not really. Hey, so, road trip plans. I was thinking we could fast food it, but now I’m thinking you should absolutely cook something for the trip.”

Joe’s eyebrows rose. Didn’t take a cop’s instincts to notice that quick change of subject. Apparently there was more than one thing Cisco considered bad dinner conversation. “My food is not to be gulped down in a moving car, my food needs to be savored.”

Cisco grinned. “Fair enough. Gas station hot dogs it is.”

Joe thought about that, made a face. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Cisco beamed. Joe shook his head with a chuckle and got back to his meal.

 

* * *

 

Between dinner and a conversation that sequed from Barry and metahumans to George Clinton and Ella Fitzgerald, and a night that led from that conversation to exploring Joe’s record collection to doing dishes side by side, by the time Joe walked Cisco to the door it was obscenely late. Not sunrise or anything (Barry still wasn’t home, but now that he was dating Joe never knew whether to expect him or not), but still late enough that when Joe headed upstairs and noticed the time on his bedside table clock, he felt genuine surprise.

He hadn’t voluntarily seen that side of four in the morning in a long time. The phone woke him up about then every so often, and sometimes shifts kept him out that late, but on his night off, when he had work in the morning? He was a bear: he hibernated, stocked up on all the sleep he could.

So this was new.

He couldn’t bring himself to be bothered, though. Good meal, great talk, and a guest who made him laugh and shared some interests. Hell, by the end of the night Joe had completely lost sight of the fact that Cisco was half his age and a friend of his foster son.

He was gonna be dragging in the morning, but it was worth it. He went to bed feeling...happy, in an unfamiliar kind of way.

He didn’t put much thought into the feeling, though. He was content to just enjoy it.

 

* * *

 

The next day his phone stayed quiet, at least as far as texts and accompanying temporary high blood pressure went. His phone was never actually quiet, not with two chatty kids and the job. Still, he found himself at his desk scarfing down the skimpy remains of a dinner that should have lasted him a few days and he was half-tempted to call his guest from the night before and make sure he was…

Was what, though? That was the question he couldn’t answer, and the reason he didn’t actually call Cisco’s number. It was an unexpected (but nice) thought that he might have made himself a new friend, but Joe wasn’t a teenager. He didn’t call people for no reason.

He thought about him, though, this smart, grinning, young, young man who made him laugh so hard the night before, who he was apparently road-tripping with this coming weekend because they might well have been the only two fans of seventies funk in Central City.

It made him think, strangely, of an old set of friends Joe used to have, back in high school and college. They had been a fairly eclectic group. Mostly black, mostly liberal but only vaguely political in their thinking at all. But all very different, very wild and vibrant and he’d been right there with them.

Joe left high school thinking he wanted to go into business. A restaurant, maybe, bringing some of his grandmama’s recipes to the bland culinary world of Central City. But he was unsure, and at loose ends. Just like the rest of them, really. His best friend, Cedric, the guy he was closest to all through high school though they grew a little distant in college, didn’t even come close to picking a major until his third year in, and he ended up leaving and moving to California before he could graduate.

When Joe found his calling, as his mama would’ve put it, it shocked him how strongly most of those friends reacted. At least once they realized he wasn’t joking and actually did want to take his college degree and hide it under a cop uniform.

People he never knew to read a newspaper were suddenly coming at him with statistics and arrest rates and fury. Joe, he was told, was trying to side with the enemy. The same people who kept his community down and out. He was a sellout, a traitor.

It was right around the start of the 90s. Rodney King hadn’t happened yet, but it was no secret that cops weren’t a friend to black men. Joe wasn’t unaware of that. He just had more faith in humanity than to think things were that simple. Bad people became cops, but cops weren’t all bad people. And it was the first path he considered for his own life that actually spoke to him. He’d think about opening a restaurant and it seemed silly. He’d think about putting on a gun and a uniform and helping people who needed it, and it felt right.

So he went on ahead and did it. He told his friends that systems could be changed from inside as easily as from outside, and he believed it. But he lost them all, one by one. A few right from the start, others as life and adulthood pulled them away, and the urge to talk to them became less important as new people and new priorities came into his life.

The only one who stuck through it all was Jackie, and it wasn’t but a couple of years until Iris, and divorce, and the last tie he had to those days was broken.

He looked Cedric up on Facebook a couple years ago. He was married, a handful of kids all a few years younger than Joe’s, working in construction, profile full of Bible quotes. Joe didn’t even send him a message. He had no idea what they’d talk about.

He missed some things about that group of friends in school. He missed the community aspect of it. Cops had a community of their own, of course, a stronger one than civilians could ever realize, but it was different.

Joe missed meeting at long tables in loud restaurants, shouting out five different conversations at once, inside jokes and drinks and cornering people on the way to the bar for two minutes of serious conversation before getting back to the fun. Dinner with Cisco, and its endless conversational sidetracks and the laughter and the beer and all of it, it reminded him of those old nights with that group.

Maybe he just missed being young.

 

* * *

 

One of those conversational directions the night before had let to a lengthy discussion about old jazz standards and the women who best brought them to life. Ella, Billie, Nina, Sarah. Cisco held up his end of things well: the kid knew music, or maybe he was just genius-level about every single thing he had any interest in. But their rankings of the grand old divas of jazz and soul had been a little different from each other, and Joe’s fierce defense of Ella was followed the next morning by the grim discovery that he had lost a few of her songbook albums through the years.

So he left the station that day - on time, which in Central City these days usually just signified calm-before-the-storm - and headed for a record store downtown that Cisco recommended. He didn’t have much hope of finding Ella on vinyl, but he’d happily settle for CDs just to get her voice into his car on the drive home.

He was wrist-deep in a dusty and unorganized pile of records when he heard a familiar voice.

“Oh my god, you actually listened to me when I said things.”

He was already smiling as his gaze found Cisco himself, coming down the CD-crammed aisles from the front door. “One or two things filtered through, yeah.”

Cisco approached him fast. He was grinning but the grin was...strange. Tight. “I’m gonna have to start watching what I say around you if you’re seriously going to pay attention.” He reached Joe and moved around him, putting Joe between him and the door and most of the store.

Joe blinked at that, losing his place in the row of records to turn to him. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I had a craving for some new tunes.”

“Uh huh.”

Cisco was studying the records with apparently total absorption. “You know I don’t actually own a record player? I mean I’m a music snob, to a point, but I’m also a tech snob, and there are people out there who convert vinyls to mp3s so I don’t have to.”

Joe watched him, heard a thin note in his voice during the stream of words. “So why do you like this place so much? CDs are as outdated as 8-tracks these days.”

“They are a dead medium,” Cisco confirmed. “But places like this are the best for expanding knowledge, you know? I’ve found a few groups I totally love now because one of their CD covers looked interesting. Never would’ve come up on Spotify playlists or iTunes recs or anything. Music’s the one thing I can do this with. Just browse and find something interesting…” He pulled out a record with a grin, flashing the cover at Joe.

The Ethel Merman Disco Album, the album read, complete with random disco lights and Ethel herself caught in the unflattering arm-flap of some dance move that probably shouldn’t have been photographed.

Cisco studied it, his smile going more genuine. “Why do you think the disembodied arm holding the fedora pointed at her was so important it had to stay in the picture?”

Joe laughed, suitably distracted. “You know, I’m almost curious enough to get this. I had no idea this existed.”

“Exactly! And that is the wonder of the record store, even in these modern times.” Cisco grinned over at Joe. But his gaze skittered past Joe towards the front of the store, and his smile tightened back into being artificial.

Joe wasn’t a cop for nothing. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

Cisco’s eyes went back to Ethel instantly.

Joe reached out and plucked the record from his hand, setting it on the row he’d been going through. “Cisco. Is something going on?”

Cisco hesitated, but when he looked over at Joe something in Joe’s expression must have alerted him. “Oh, hey, no, nothing...like, no metas or anything.”

Joe nodded. “But something.”

“Just…” Cisco looked out again, squinting towards the sunlight filtering through the store’s front windows. “It’s nothing.”

Joe faced him, arms folding across his chest.

Cisco grinned weakly. “I thought I saw somebody down the block. Somebody I don’t want to see.”

Joe studied him. Seemed to be the truth, but not nearly the whole truth.

Cisco let out a breath, his shoulders sagging a little. “It wasn’t him. I mean. I know it wasn’t. Just I keep thinking I see him whenever I’m out. It’s weird. Freaking me out a little.”

“Who?”

“Someone I used to know.”

Joe hesitated, glancing towards the front of the store. “You want me to go take a look?”

“No.” Cisco huffed a breath. “Seriously, it’s not him. He’d never put himself at risk just to follow me.”

At risk. Joe searched Cisco’s profile, considering how much about this kid he still didn’t know. He was bad at people, that’s what he said the night before. Sometimes he picked really bad people. Joe should have asked what his idea of bad was, apparently.

“Tell you what. Why don’t we take a walk. It’s nice out, we can double check this guy isn’t around. And if he is around…”

Cisco looked up at that, smiling faintly. “I’ll be with a big tough cop?”

Joe shrugged. “I do fit that description. Maybe not if I bring Ethel Merman’s disco album along, but.”

Cisco smiled, and it grew into a soft laugh. “You should get it anyway.”

“I do like Ethel. My mama loved all those old Broadway types.”

“Oh, your _mom_ , sure. Yeah.” Cisco grabbed the album and held it out. “Just get it. It’s amazing and it’s six bucks, and you’ll be a better man for owning it.”

Joe took it with a grin and added it to the stack of CDs he’d set beside the record boxes. “Come on.”

Outside the store, Cisco took a look around and seemed satisfied. He didn’t seem to tense up much, and as they strolled down the sidewalk he distracted himself by digging through Joe’s bag of other finds.

“It was some kind of ADHD thing,” he said when Joe asked about this great epic love of music. “I was a pretty lousy student until second year of high school, when they tested me up to senior year and AP classes and things that finally didn’t bore the crap out of me. But even when the homework was actually interesting, I wouldn’t do it. I’d sit there in our little apartment and stare at the wall and daydream and listen to the family next door shouting through the walls, and my mind would be a million places at once. Then one day my brother slapped a pair of headphones over my ears and told me if I failed one of my fancy classes and he had to stop bragging to his friends about his genius brother he was gonna cut my hair off in my sleep. Which was a threat I totally took seriously.”

Joe glanced around as they walked, looking behind them surreptitiously when he thought Cisco wouldn’t notice. He wasn’t sure what was going on with Cisco or who it was he was trying to avoid, but there was an instinct telling him to keep his eyes out, and Joe never ignored that instinct.

He listened, though, because after Cisco shut down any talk of his family last night he was interested in whatever little glimpses he could get.

“Anyway, the music actually worked. It was like...having something steady to permanently distract me stopped my brain wandering all that far away, and, boom. Straight As. So music was suddenly important, and since I was doing nothing but studying I needed lots of it. I didn’t take those headphones off until I had my BA.”

Joe glanced over when he paused.

Cisco flushed. “Sorry. I talk. You should know better by now than to ask me things.”

“It’s called a conversation, kid. I’m interested.”

He looked over, smiling and ducking his eyes again quickly. “Oh. Well then.”

Joe nudged his arm. “That means don’t clam up.”

Cisco grinned. “Right, sorry. Hey!” He nodded ahead at a familiar sign. “Come on, coffee. My treat, since you blew the budget on Ethel.”

“Sold.” Joe reached the door first and opened it, holding it as Cisco moved through. He glanced back down the sidewalk the way they’d been coming, but nothing caught his eye.

Until someone stepped into view. Back a ways, but near enough that Joe could make out some details. A man, white, wearing a hoodie that covered his hair. Wearing glasses that glinted under the sun.

Something about him was familiar.

Whoever it was, he seemed to appear out of nowhere, and he stood still for a moment, looking...Joe couldn’t tell, but it sure as hell seemed like the guy was looking right at him.

Standing in plain view. Deliberate. Like he wanted Joe to see him looking.

But he turned on his heel suddenly and headed down the sidewalk fast.

Joe tensed from the urge to go after the guy. He frowned as he moved into the coffee shop. He reached the line and Cisco grinned back at him, which made his focus stutter all at once.

He wanted to ask Cisco about it, about this guy he thought he saw places who worried him enough that he wanted someone with him just to walk down a street.

But by the time they got through the line and to a relatively quiet table, he wasn’t at all sure he’d seen anything worth mentioning. A guy standing on the sidewalk looking in his direction...guy might have been on a bluetooth listening to a phone call or something. Joe could get suspicious - all cops could - and he could project things on people. He knew that well enough to know it was a strong possibility.

He also didn’t particularly want to see Cisco’s grin vanish, or change into that tight, strange smile he’d first greeted Joe with earlier.

So in the end he stayed quiet, letting Cisco distract him until they were both laughing easily and neither were giving a thought to the world outside.

 

* * *

 

_Hey, I’m returning the red beans and rice favor. Skip lunch today._   
_Okay, for the record? Your name in my phone is Joe DO NOT TEXT HIM RAMON FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS West. And somehow this still just happened._

Two days until their upcoming road trip, Joe read those words with a smile that was beginning to feel familiar. He started to push the button to call Cisco, but hesitated. With a grin, he brought the phone up close and pecked in an answering text: _Im starting to not get alarmed when I hear the sound of a text coming in. I dont know if thats good or bad._

And it was true. He still dropped everything and grabbed the phone fast when he heard the beep, but he didn’t get worried. It didn’t help that the week had been disaster-free so far, and not one emergency text had come through since Cisco started his absent-minded texting spree. Though he wasn’t exactly complaining there.

His phone buzzed, and he chuckled. Sitting back at his desk, pushing aside the keyboard and the report he was halfway through (garden variety attempted bank robbery, no superpowers, not even a gun, and he was so relieved to still work crimes like that one), he answered with a growing smile.

“Returning the favor, huh?”

“Remind me next time we hang out to turn the autocorrect on on your phone. There’s no excuse to leave apostrophes out of your contractions. Are we animals?”

“I thought text-speak was all about brevity and saving time.”

“Are we _frat boys_?”

“I was in a frat,” Joe answered absently. Eddie was approaching, and Joe readied to get pulled out of the conversation until Eddie veered off and dropped at his own desk, sighing the sigh of a man who couldn’t find anything to excuse him away from his own reports. Joe knew it well.

“I’m willing to forgive you that because you make a mean dinner. Also, yes, returning the favor. Assuming you don’t have any allergies or aversions to food from south of the border?”

“Nope. Matter of fact, if we’re both home Sunday nights Barry and I usually grab Taco Cocina for dinner.”

There was stark, dead silence on the other end.

Joe laughed, interpreting easily. “Let me guess. That doesn’t count.”

“Joseph Do-Not-Text-Him-Ramon-for-the-Love-of-Jesus West, there is only so much I can forgive in one conversation.”

“My bad.” Joe grinned, catching Eddie’s glance and shrugging as if helplessly stuck on the phone.

Eddie scowled at him, then sighed at his screen again. It was unfortunate that they both despised paperwork as much as they did, there was no room for negotiations or bribery.

“So?”

He focused on the phone again. “So? No aversions, no allergies. But I can’t promise we won’t be out on a call if you do stop by.”

“My fragile ego will survive the insult. Okay, go fight crime or whatever.”

Joe hung up with a grin. He looked at his half-written report on its dimmed screen and turned to Eddie instead.

Eddie was already watching him. “We could always go re-interview the witness from that coffee shop outside the bank.”

Joe grabbed his jacket. “Read my mind.”

 

* * *

 

The (completely unnecessary) re-interview didn’t provide a shred of new information, but Joe, despite his relief over the innocent, almost normal crime they were currently assigned to, couldn’t help but feel ambivalent about it actually being solved.

The day before a woman had walked in to Central City Credit Union carrying a note in her hand. The bank employees noticed her acting bizarrely, but before anyone could intercept her she approached the teller. She shoved the note across the counter, tears in her eyes, but said ‘I don’t want to do this’ and took off.

No money, no threats, just a crumpled note politely asking the teller to give her some money, please and thank you.

It was bizarre as crimes went, but none of the tellers felt scared of the woman, and they’d debated even calling the police in. Joe himself? He figured she was someone desperate for money who talked herself into something rash and then talked herself out of it just a few steps farther than she should have gone.

He didn’t want to arrest her. But he did want to find her. He wasn’t sure Singh felt the same way, but he definitely noticed Eddie dragging his feet on ideas about how to track the woman down.

“It’s really all or nothing in this city, it feels like,” Eddie said as they were finally in the car heading back to the station. “Superpowered humans killing whole groups of people, or a bank robbery where nothing gets taken and the victims beg us not to do anything.”

“Didn’t used to be this way,” Joe agreed. Not that it was ever a predictable job, and Joe (and Eddie, he was sure) wasn’t so naive as to think that metas were suddenly the only ones capable of real, horrible violence. “But if anyone’s taking requests I wouldn’t mind a good solid week of nothing.”

“I’ll second that.”

Singh stuck his head out of his office before they reached their desks. “West. Thawne.” He vanished inside again.

They traded looks but headed to Singh’s office. Maybe the week’s lull was already over.

But. No. Joe pushed the door open into the office, and his smile was instant and broad.

Cisco Ramon sat on the stiff black leather couch against the back wall of the captain’s office. Sitting cross-legged with his feet on the couch (Singh allowed his feet on the couch?), with a take-out box on his lap.

Joe understood how Cisco felt when he walked into the house the other night, because he took in one deep breath of whatever it was he was eating (they were eating, Singh had a box on his desk, Singh and Cisco Ramon were eating lunch together?) and he wanted to float his way to the source.

“Hey, guys!” Cisco waved a plastic fork at them. “On the table. Plenty for everyone. I anticipated that Joe’s ability to have lunch might require some extra bribe meals.”

Singh chuckled as he sat behind his desk and got back into some serious eating.

Joe didn’t have to be asked twice. He grabbed a styrofoam container and dropped on the couch beside Cisco. “What is it?”

“ _Arroz morado con mariscos_ ,” Cisco answered in easy liquid Spanish. “It’s from a Latin fusion place near the lab that I might as well own part of, as much money as I throw down there.” He grinned over at Joe as Joe took in the dark purple of the rice inside the container. “It’s basically Peruvian paella.”

“Sold.” Eddie grabbed the last container and moved to sit in the visitor’s chair across from the desk. “Thanks, Cisco.”

Cisco looked over at Joe with a bright smile. “I didn’t even bring hot sauce, that’s how confident I am in this choice.”

Joe chuckled. “I see it’s unhealthy, given how fast the captain’s is vanishing.”

Singh looked up unapologetically, mouth full and chewing fast.

“We were just talking about that. I mean I’m all for alternative lifestyles, but I draw the line at dieting. Dating a dude who cuts carbs from your diet? Carbs?” Cisco shook his head, gesturing a fork-stabbed shrimp accusingly in Singh’s direction. “Carbs are the single most important food group.”

“I don’t have any room to talk,” Eddie contributed after swallowing a huge bite. “Iris seems to be in penance mode these days. Says she used up too high a calorie allotment working at Jitters so she needs to make up for it now. It’s all healthy salads and baked fish lately.” He scooped up another forkful approvingly. “You’ll have to give me the name of this place, though, she’d love this. She would cheat for this.”

Joe found himself nodding his agreement. She would love it, and at least food was something safe to share Iris stories about. Still, he wasn’t all that eager to continue it. His baby girl didn’t belong in police station chatter, however innocuous in was.

“Well, _some_ of us,” he said with a fairly smug smile, “don’t have to worry about things like that. And we have someone nice enough to bring us Peruvian paella.”

Cisco shot him that lit-from-the-inside grin of his. “I hate to break it to you guys, but there’s really nothing unhealthy about this.”

“Even better,” Eddie said.

Singh frowned at his container, looking genuinely disappointed, but shrugged and kept shoveling it in.

 

* * *

 

Miraculously things stayed quiet for the twenty minutes it took Joe and Eddie to swallow their meals down. Joe even had enough breathing room to walk Cisco out to his car afterward.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Cisco turned to Joe as they left the station behind for the bright afternoon sunshine. “I brought you something else.” He pulled out a slim square case. “I figured you for the kind of guy who still has a CD player somewhere in his house.”

Joe wondered if there was an insult in that guess, but since he did have one (two, actually, and another one in his car), he just plucked the case from Cisco’s hand with a raised eyebrow.

Cisco laughed. “Uh huh. Anyway, tell me what you think.”

“Tim Maia.” Joe read the magic marker off the case.

“Brazilian musician, big in the 70s. He was awesome. This is a mix of his funk period, both pre- and post-religious conversion.” Cisco’s smile glowed. “It’s mostly in Portuguese, but you’ll like it anyway.”

Joe chuckled and slid the case into his jacket pocket. “Brazilian funk, Peruvian paella. Where are you actually from?”

“Born right here. Grew up in Bleeker Heights, all shades of brown represented. Guess it stuck with me.”

Joe knew the area. Bleeker Heights was hitting a gentrification phase, reportedly, but before that it had died a pretty hard death, all boarded businesses and homeless outnumbering residents. And before that death, back in the 90s, it was still low-income housing and high crime rates.

He couldn’t help but feel a little surprised that someone like Cisco, someone with such an easy, radiating smile, grew up somewhere even the cops hated having to visit.

Cisco’s smile went crooked, like he was reading Joe’s thoughts. “My folks were from Puerto Rico, though, since I know that’s what you’re actually asking.”

“Hey, you make me curious.” Joe shrugged. “You’re a pretty unique guy.”

Cisco puffed up a little, his smile clear and unshadowed. “Well, your boss likes me. I’m gonna have to start scheduling deliveries, get him some color back in his cheeks. No carbs, Jesus.”

 

* * *

 

Still grinning on his way back inside, Joe ran into Singh coming out of the major crimes squad room.

“Eddie fill you in on the bank job?”

Singh frowned, but nodded him towards the stairs. “Mr. Ramon leave?”

“Just now, yeah.”

David Singh was a good captain. Always had been. A little short-tempered, but the job involved so much politics that Joe suspected he himself might become something of a tyrant if he had to deal with that six days a week.

He’d been through the ringer to get where he was, and he was too good a man to forget what that ringer was like for the people still going through it. Even Joe, who had been a cop as long as Singh, but had no interest in promotion, at least for now. Detective was as high as Joe could get without being put behind a desk the majority of his days, and he wasn’t ready for that yet.

Still, he knew Singh would listen to him and Eddie about this bank robbery, and their opinions would matter even if the letter of the law prevailed.

Singh got Joe past the stairs down the little side emergency exit, where they could have a relatively private few words. But when he spoke it was nothing at all what Joe was expecting.

“I don’t try to involve myself in the private lives of my detectives, Joe, but we’ve known each other a while now, so I feel like I’m in a place to say something…”

Joe stared at him, but shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

But Singh seemed to have prepared nothing further. He hesitated, looking outside their little corner as if hoping someone might wander by and distract them. After an awkwardly long pause he drew in a breath and faced Joe again. “He’s a little young, isn’t he?”

Joe blinked.

“He’s a nice guy, don’t get me wrong. Gotta be smart, working at that lab. Hell, he made me laugh in the middle of a work day, that’s not easy. But there’s a whole lot I need to make sure you’ve thought about before he keeps showing up here...bringing you lunch.”

Joe was starting to understand exactly what Singh was going on about, but shock robbed him of a response at first.

Singh sighed. “You surprised me with this one, I’ll say that much. I’ve noticed you never date, but I wouldn’t have guessed...”

“Okay, wait.” Joe wasn’t sure if he wanted to feel a little horrified or laugh and get immediately on the phone to call Cisco and tell him all about this like Joe was a gossipy teenager himself. “I...uh, appreciate you looking out for me, Captain...”

“Look. Seriously. You’ve got me here, and a station full of people who know that I won’t accept the slightest trace of homophobia or--”

“Captain.” Joe smiled despite himself. He actually felt a little flattered. “Cisco actually was just bringing me lunch. He’s a friend. That’s it.”

“Uh huh.” Singh’s expression didn’t change. “Does he know that?”

Joe’s smile faded in curiosity.

Singh’s mouth twitched a little. He clapped Joe on the shoulder. “He...speaks highly of you. If that’s all it is then that’s where I’ll leave it.”

Joe watched him walk away, his amusement making a roller coaster dip up and then down again. He dug his phone out of his pocket, but slid it back in a moment later. It took a surprising amount of restraint not to go jogging after Singh to ask details about exactly what he and Cisco had talked about before Joe and Eddie got there.

He left that private corner after another minute, bemused, with a little uncertain churning feeling in his gut. As he headed back into the squad room to meet up with Eddie, though, he found himself smiling.

 

* * *

 

“So I was thinking...what are you doing?”

Joe straightened from his packing job, looking back to see Barry standing in the open doorway to his bedroom. “Hey. Didn’t hear you get home.”

Barry eyed him, and moved into the room to peer at the clothes folded beside Joe’s deflated duffel bag. “I was at Eddie’s, actually. I mean, Iris and Eddie’s.  Their place. The apartment that they…”

Joe smiled faintly. “If you’ve spent the evening torturing yourself you don’t have to keep it going now.”

“Right.” Barry returned the smile after a moment, a little wistful but genuine enough. That boy couldn’t hide a feeling from Joe to save his life. “So. I just got in. I know it’s late.”

“Usually is. I’m pretty sure I saw you more often before you moved back.”

“Oh, good, I was hoping for a shot of guilt before bed.” Barry sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the small pile of clothes. “And you didn’t answer me - what are you doing? You going somewhere?”

“I left you a message about it two days ago.”

Barry’s eyes rolled up in his head as he thought about it. “The concert with Cisco? You’re packing a bag for that?”

“It’s in St. Louis. We might come back the next morning if the city stays as quiet as it has been all week.”

“Huh.” Barry blinked at the clothes, but shrugged and turned his focus back to Joe. “I didn’t think he’d actually ask you.”

“Why not? I’m not _his_ uncool foster dad.”

“Yeah, but then doesn’t that make you just a generic old guy?” Barry laughed and ducked away when Joe swatted at him. “Okay, I take it back! Jeez.”

“Damn right you take it back.” Joe went back to his packing. It was just a change of clothes and some pajamas, just in case. His usual emergency-stakeout overnight kit was already in the car with any kind of toiletries he’d need.

Barry sat back, seemingly content to just watch quietly. Which was unusual enough that Joe snuck a few glances over. Ahh, of course. He had The Iris Look on his face.

Joe didn’t envy Barry there. He wondered if it shouldn’t feel more unusual, his adopted son being so head over heels with his daughter. But that had always been a part of who Barry was. Before he first walked into this house to stay, Joe saw that adoration in his eyes towards Iris.

Used to be something he chuckled over. A sign that his strong, smart, vibrant little girl was gonna grow up to break a million hearts. But the years passed, and absolutely nothing about that love-addled gaze changed at all. Barry’s love for Iris was as much a part of who he was as his own name.

Didn’t make the situation any less awkward. And now that Barry’s feelings were out in the open everything had gotten a little...skewed.

He cleared his throat more to get Barry out of his wallowing than from any real need to start a conversation. “So...what do you know about him, anyway?”

Barry’s inward gaze focused on him after a moment. “Huh? Who?”

“Cisco.” That was easiest to ask about, anyway; Joe’s curiosity about Cisco wasn’t particularly strong. And wasn’t getting stronger every day.

Barry blinked, but his face regained some animation as he thought it over. “Inside the lab or outside? Because outside...not much, actually.” He frowned as he said it, like it was an unpleasant discovery. “He grew up around here...I think. He’s got...parents? Or did at some point, that’s a pretty safe guess.”

“Wow.” Joe straightened up and looked down at Barry.

Barry flushed. “He doesn’t talk about stuff like that, it’s not my fault.”

“You ever ask him?”

Barry shrugged, the furrow between his eyebrows answer enough. He stood up after a moment. “Okay, well. That’s a double shot of guilt, so I think I’m good for the night.”

“Glad I could help.” Joe opened his arms reflexively. He squeezed Barry in a hug that started quick but went long when Barry seemed to cling to him a little bit.

He thought about asking about that woman Linda and why Barry was spending his free nights playing third wheel to Iris and Eddie, but in the end he stayed quiet. He hugged Barry tight and let him go with a smile.

“See you in the morning. Sleep tight, Bar.”

Barry made a little face, like ‘sleep tight’ was too corny to let slide. But he smiled and squeezed Joe’s arm before letting him go. “Night, Joe.”

 

* * *

 

Once he was tucked into bed, Joe found himself staring up at the darkness and listening to the silence, feeling a little pensive. Nervous about the next day, maybe? A possible overnight road trip was a pretty demanding get-together to have with a new friend. But no, Joe wasn’t the type to get overly anxious about things like that, and he knew Cisco wasn’t going to be apprehensive in the slightest.

Cisco. Maybe that was it. Joe hadn’t been alarmed by the beep of a text all day.

He reached for the phone he kept beside his bed at night, checking the screen just in case. No, nothing.

Indecision only lasted a few seconds, then the phone was ringing in his ear and that was that.

“Hey! Ready for tomorrow?”

“All packed. You?”

“Believe it or not, I think I overdid it. I’m gonna have to go through the bag and weed some things out before we go.” Cisco didn’t sound like he had been sleeping, but his usual energy was muted. Still every word seemed to be spoken through a grin.

Joe smiled into the darkness. “I’m shocked.”

“Right? Like half of it’s edible, too. I have no sense of proportions. But if we get stuck in a freak snowstorm and stranded inside the car for a month, we won’t even lose weight.”

Joe chuckled, but spoke before he could let Cisco lull him away from asking. “Hey. I wanted to ask. The other day, at the record store…”

Cisco’s side fell quiet.

“You’ve been okay? No sign of your old...whoever?”

“Ex.” The confession came out unsteadily. “I mean, kind of ex. But whatever, I told you it wasn’t him. It was just…”

“Paranoia? That usually comes from somewhere.”

“He would have said it came from an unjustified sense of self-importance.” The words were light, like it was supposed to be a joke.

Joe didn’t laugh. “He sounds like a hell of a jerk for an ex.”

“He was. A short but grand mistake, in every sense of the word. And I kinda don’t like talking about him, if that’s cool.”

Joe sighed. “Look, Cisco. I’ve been a cop a long time. Instincts come from somewhere. Sometimes that nervous feeling in your gut is your brain picking up clues subconsciously. So. If you think you spot him again somewhere, you give me a call. Promise that much and I’ll drop it.”

“I promise.” Cisco said the words easily enough, soft but clear, like he was holding the phone that much closer. “Thanks, Joe.”

Joe made a sound of acknowledgement, not really content but not pushing the issue. He didn’t like the idea of some mistake haunting Cisco that way. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who dwelled on things, or was nervous or paranoid in general. Which meant that either he had a real reason to be or that this guy had done a number on him.

“You know I almost called you like twenty minutes ago.” Cisco filled the silence, his voice back to being cheerful. “Didn’t know if you slept early or not. I was halfway through typing a text and I actually remembered in time. Calling seemed kind of anticlimactic after that.”

“I told you I was starting not to mind the texts.”

“Nah, you’re a cop. Plus Barry exists, and is Barry, so you need your emergency system intact.” Cisco sounded thoughtful. “Though if I could get my hands on your phone I could always give my texts a separate ringtone, then we’d both be happy.”

“I’d be okay with that.”

Joe listened for a moment to the familiar sounds of Barry padding down the hall on the way to the bathroom, too heavy-footed the way he always was. Joe never could figure that out, skinny as Barry was. He wasn’t exactly a kid with a lot of grace about him, though.

He reached over and turned off the lamp, laying back with the phone against his ear. “Hey, I never said thank you for lunch, did I?”

“I was just returning the favor, remember? No need for thanks. But no, you didn’t, you ingrate.”

Joe chuckled. “Thanks. Of course if you really wanted to return the favor it should have been homemade, but...”

“You got it, I’ll bring a tupperware container of instant ramen for the road tomorrow. All the homemade Ramon cuisine you could want.”

“Yeah, no, let’s just call it square.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Joe laughed quietly, and Cisco echoed it in his ear. He rolled over on his side, settling in with a sigh. Long days, even though nothing horrible was happening in the city at the moment. Sometimes that just made the days seem longer. “So what were you texting me about before you stopped yourself?”

There was a moment’s silence. “I can’t remember. Nothing important. You know me, I probably saw something shiny and wanted to tell someone about it.”

Joe grinned. “I’m honored to be the one you’d trust with something so special.”

“Hey, don’t knock it.” Another pause, and Cisco’s voice sounded quieter suddenly. More hesitant. “I like talking to you, that’s all. Feels like I haven’t made any new friends since the accelerator accident. The world’s been really closed-in ever since then. I mean there’s Barry, but he feels...I dunno, like he’s closed in right along with us.”

“A kid like you, with your personality? I figured you were the kind of guy to have a thousand friends every place you went.”

“Right? I’m pretty rad.”

Joe smiled but didn’t respond. He’d been a cop long enough to know that silence was the best motivator to get someone to talk. Cisco was way too quick to shut up when he himself was the subject of conversation. There was something about that that Joe didn’t like.

Sure enough, it only took a few heartbeats for him to go on. “It was easier when I was younger, I think. It’s just...the job, the lab, everything. We have to keep so many secrets, it’s better to just...not bother.”

Joe blinked. “That doesn’t sound like the same guy I’ve been talking to the last few days.”

“It’s not really how I want to be,” Cisco answered. “It’s hard.”

“So why do it?”

There was a pause. “Doctor Wells says it’s for the best that we keep to ourselves.”

And there it was. Joe sighed, not happy to hear the words he’d suspected coming. He had a few gripes about Harrison Wells - if his theories were correct then ‘gripes’ was an absurd understatement - but one of the biggest was hearing Wells’s views coming out of the mouths of bright young kids who ought to have known better. First Barry, now Cisco.

He kept his answer casual, though. “Then I guess this is your proof that Doctor Wells isn’t always right.”

A longer pause. “You don’t still think...I mean…” Cisco sighed into the phone. “Nah, that’s probably better off staying something we don’t talk about.”

“I think there’s more going on with him than he wants anyone to know.” Joe answered, since just not talking about things wasn’t really his style. “You said Wells didn’t know Barry back when his mom was killed. You were right. But…”

“Time travel.” The answer was quick enough that Cisco must have been thinking about it. “He’s been...since the beginning, so obsessed with Barry. He says Barry’s the best thing he’s ever done. And he’s willing to...to hurt people. To protect Barry.”

Joe frowned into the darkness, hearing the way Cisco’s voice was clogging as he went on. It ached, he knew it would ache, to be a witness as Wells’ secrets started catching up to the people around him. Especially the people Joe cared about.

“Do me a favor,” Cisco said suddenly, voice artificially brighter. “Let’s promise not to talk about this tomorrow. Any of it. At all.”

Joe smiled faintly. Avoiding things wasn’t healthy, he knew, but everyone deserved a good road trip. “You got it.”

 

* * *

 

He woke up late the next morning: no alarm in his ear, and Barry had been nice enough to head to work quietly.

Days off that actually stayed days off were a luxury, and though Joe had a full day planned this time around he didn’t have to get an early start on it. He was packed and ready. The car needed gas but Cisco told him solemnly that the pre-trip gas and snack stop was sacred and Cisco needed to be part of it, so that had to wait.

He had nothing calling to him. Nothing but the warmth of his bed and the afterimages of some pleasant dreams in his head.

He wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been dreaming about, but he felt good. In a general sense. If he let himself...it wouldn’t take much until he felt good in a very specific sense.

He wasn’t sure they’d been those kind of dreams, but it felt like that kind of morning.

Joe hadn’t had sex regularly since Jackie, but he’d been out there now and then. He explained it to Cisco like he’d been tricked into a few dates that never went anywhere, but that wasn’t precisely true. Sometimes they’d gone somewhere very nice indeed. Just never more than once.

Still, for all his long periods of solitude, Joe was a man. He wasn’t uninterested in sex, he wasn’t unaffected by dreams and thoughts and fantasies.

He’d dismissed the idea of even calling Sherry, but he’d thought about her. She was, though he’d never admit it to anyone, the current star of his occasional fantasies.

Joe had nowhere to be for a few hours. He was alone, he was feeling it, so he sank back into his pillow and let his mind wander where it wanted to.

She really had been beautiful. When he went up to talk to her about giving them some space for the evening so Cisco could complete his mirror project, she’d been warm and cheerful and even more blatant in her interest than she had been when they first arrived.

In his fantasies he just had to push the issue a little more.

This time instead of asking him if he wanted to join her at the movies, she checked him out openly through that full-length mirror she’d been watching herself in when he knocked on her bedroom door, and she told him that if he wanted her out of his hair he could tire her out himself.

And in his fantasies he was free to say yes, to approach her from behind and watch her in the mirror as he pressed in behind her. She hummed her satisfaction as she felt him hard against her ass, and he ran his fingers up her body, her distractingly impressive breasts filling his hands as he bent to kiss her neck.

She arched against him, sighing her pleasure as he ran a hand up her thigh, hiking up that tight black dress until his fingers pressed up into her heat, stroked her until she was moaning and wet, her head dropped against his shoulder, her ass grinding back on his cock.

Joe lay there, stroking himself slowly as he let the now-familiar fantasy start to play out. Typically she would come just like that, shuddering against his fingers, and it would only make her hotter for him. She’d turn and push him back onto the bed, unfasten his pants and climb on top of him, sink down, wet and warm as her body took him in.

But this time his mind played along that track and then wandered away, restless. He put them back up in front of that mirror, and this time she turned in his arms and sank down to her knees, smiling heatedly up at him as she worked to open his pants.

That didn’t take long to lose his focus either. He sighed, hard and unsatisfied with his own fantasies. Maybe for the best, he thought randomly. Since Cisco had been right downstairs and in his fantasies Sherry got pretty loud.

That led to a whole stream of other thoughts. Cisco downstairs hearing her, hearing them. Hey, he’d promised not to judge, right? He was young, he’d probably just get turned on by it.

His mind suddenly went to the other night, to he and Cisco sitting on the floor in Joe’s living room going through his records while they talked. If the records were gone, if it was just them on the floor drinking their beers and talking, and Cisco was turned on and smiling the way Sherry smiled at him…

Fuck, okay, it was just a fantasy. Harmless, meant nothing, and Joe was too far gone to talk himself out of it. He was instantly back in Sherry’s bedroom in front of that mirror, only it was Cisco’s warm, dark eyes looking at him through their reflection. Cisco leaning back against his body, Cisco’s erection filling Joe’s hand, and his voice throaty and loud and groaning as Joe stroked him, fast, the way he was stroking himself.

Joe groaned as his orgasm approached. He tried to switch back, to put Sherry back against him, but Cisco refused to leave. Cisco flushed and aroused and calling Joe’s name, begging for release...fuck.

He pushed up into his hand and gritted his teeth to keep from crying out as his cock pulsed and spurted.

The fantasy fractured and fell away. Joe opened his eyes into the dimness of his own bedroom, panting for air, heart thudding in his chest.

As his breathing slowed to normal and the sweat cooled on his skin, he waited for some kind of surprise or guilt or worry to come over him. Just a fantasy, sure, but fantasies still said something, didn’t they?

But he was still waiting as he jumped into his shower and cleaned up, and after he toweled off and dressed in appropriate roadtrip slash concert clothes, and after he picked up his phone to see a text waiting for him.

_See you soon._

 

* * *

 

It was an unremarkable drive from Central City to St Louis. A lot of highway, flat horizons, trees or fields on either side of them as they zoomed their way through Missouri.

Just as well. It was an overcast, grey day out there, but inside the car it was warm and the music was going and company was good.

Cisco’s Brazilian funk singer warmed them up as they headed out of town and got their supposedly sacred gas-and-snacks, and a couple of huge coffees in anticipation for a late night.

Joe drove, Cisco controlled the radio, and they chatted their way through less interesting songs until Cisco would interrupt with something Joe had to listen to, a ‘wait, this riff here, you hear what he’s doing? I swear George Clinton sampled that somewhere, but I can never remember which song’ or something like that.

Joe let him run the show, content to listen to some new music and not think about anything else too hard.

It was Singh’s fault, he figured, that Joe’s brain had cast Cisco in a role in his fantasies that morning. Singh’s assumption that Cisco was bringing him lunch because they meant something to each other, something more than casual. It was Cisco’s doing, too, because he’d gotten Joe thinking about how long he’d been alone. Or because he was generally just a warm, fascinated, appealing guy and he was spending so much time with Joe lately.

And, Joe conceded, it was his own fault. There wasn’t a single unattractive thing about Cisco Ramon - though if he could’ve spontaneously aged ten more years or so Joe would’ve felt a little less strange about their new friendship - and Joe had never denied himself his rare but lifelong attraction to some men.

Anyway, it wasn’t like it mattered. It was a fantasy. It was subconscious and hormonal and Joe was grown enough to separate fantasy from reality. Just because he kept sneaking glances at Cisco, because he kept taking time to appreciate the excited glow in his eyes, the way he waved his hands as he talked, the absent way he pushed his long hair out of his face...that didn’t mean anything.

It meant Joe was feeling a little lonely lately, and he had a new friend, and those two things were trying to fit together in his head to make his life simple.

Well. No. Not simple. If he was attracted to Cisco Ramon that was the opposite of simple. But it was a moot point anyway, because despite Singh’s little comment at the station there was no indication that Cisco had any interest in a man almost twice his age, and Joe wasn’t about to push the issue.

He felt unsettled, though, he had to admit. Even as Cisco pulled him from his thoughts time and again with comments about the music, or questions about Joe, or random small talk about his own life, Joe’s mind always went back to that morning. Or the night of the dinner, or sitting across from Cisco drinking coffee and talking their way through a stack of CDs and an Ethel Merman record.

Maybe it was time for Joe to actually consider getting out there and meeting someone. His kids were adults now, God help him, and his life was...insane, generally, but as settled as it was going to get. If nothing else this week showed him that there was room in his life for another person.

But then he found himself dismissing that thought as it occurred to him. There was nothing lacking in his life at all. If this week showed he had space for a new friend...well, Cisco was it. He filled that space perfectly. He and Joe had more in common than Joe ever would have guessed, but they were different enough to be interesting to each other. Cisco had the energy to get Joe going, and he already understood the parts of Joe’s life that would be hardest to share with someone new.

Joe’s fantasies didn’t actually matter. They were his body wanting to get off, and his mind tossing out whatever recent images might do the trick. That was it. And they were fine, they did their job. He got off and he got on with his life.

Anything else, anything different, would simply be too complicated to sustain.

 

* * *

 

The concert was everything Joe was hoping for. He might have been twenty-one years old again, going to dark underground clubs and listening to cover bands playing the fading glory that funk was back then. The crowd was hyped up, packed in and dancing and shouting. The music was amazing, Bootsy still had everything he always had.

By the time the Unity League was on their second encore, Joe was wiped out. He’d been way more active than he might have been on his own, but...it was hard not to be. Cisco knew every song, every guitar riff, and he was the first one out of his seat when the band first came out. He danced, he drank, and when he looked at Joe with bright brown eyes to join him...wasn’t much choice to be made. Joe would’ve dared anyone, funk fan or not, to disappoint Cisco Ramon when he had that look on his face.

When they left the club and headed out into unfamiliar St. Louis streets, Joe checked his phone and saw in relief that Singh hadn’t changed his all-clear. That meant a hotel tonight and drive back tomorrow, and Joe wouldn’t have to worry about falling asleep at the wheel and killing himself and his young friend.

“I just. How do you even. The sheer _musicality_ of that band. Every riff, every improv, every jam. Just.” Cisco didn’t stop buzzing the entire drive to the hotel. He hardly seemed to notice where they were until Joe was parked and they were climbing out.

“Oh! Awesome, we get to crash. I kinda want to go dancing, you think there’s an after-hours spot around here?”

Joe just laughed. “If there is you’re on your own. That last hour did me in.”

“Oh, man, with the Bootzilla encore, freaking _legendary_.” Cisco followed him into the hotel’s lobby, but veered off to head to the big-screen TV playing off to the side by some kind of stripped-down coffee bar. “I”m gonna see if it made the news!”

Joe chuckled and headed for the counter. He’d made a refundable reservation before the drive, so he gave his name and slid over his ID.

“One room, just for tonight?” The guy behind the counter was probably younger than Cisco, bored with his lot in life though the graveyard shift at a small off-brand hotel probably lent itself to that kind of thing.

Joe went through the routine easily, until the guy shot him a semi-interested look, and glanced behind him towards that TV. “Two queens?”

“That’s what I asked for,” Joe agreed, only just catching the look on the guy’s face before he schooled it into something slightly more professional. His eyebrows flew up. “You better be talking about the beds in the room, pal.”

“Of course, sir.” The guy didn’t bother to trying to sound sincere. “And you’ll be paying? For...the whole night?” His eyes skittered behind Joe again.

“You’re done asking questions.” Joe scowled, glancing back at Cisco to make sure he wasn’t hearing this crap.

Cisco was leaning against the back of a stiff-looking decorative couch, watching the television and drumming hands against the couch. He was standing profile to Joe, mouth moving absently as he watched the news. Singing to himself, Joe would have bet money. Whichever of the songs from the last three hours had stuck in his head.

It made Joe smile. Cisco’s enthusiasm for everything was nice to be around, but this was some next-level stuff, and Joe was really glad he’d made the trip with him.

“Mr. West?”

It took Joe a moment, mostly because he was used to being addressed as Detective, but he dragged his eyes back to the asshole behind the counter.

The guy was full-on smirking by then. “Sign here, please.” His eyes went behind Joe one more time, openly speculative.

Joe wanted to bark out for him to mind his own business, but he knew well enough that shining any kind of spotlight on insinuations like this guy had in his head only made them worse.

Okay, Cisco was young and good-looking. Okay, so he tended towards ridiculous tight pants, and dancing through the concert in the middle of a sweaty crowd of people had his t-shirt clinging to him. But it was Cisco Ramon. Joe looked back at him and saw a genius young man, vibrant and sincere and happy. Whatever it was this guy saw - Joe didn’t want to guess but he could assume - Joe wanted to reach across the counter and fist his shirt and explain exactly who it was he was smirking at.

Instead he signed the form and got the key card in return (the one card, the guy didn’t even ask if they needed two). As he left the smirking jerk behind his good mood was definitely dented.

Cisco looked over as he approached, beaming. Joe wanted to turn back around just at the sight of it, to ask the guy if he seriously thought some hustler would smile at him like that. But he didn’t. He just nodded towards the door.

“We good?” Cisco moved with him out to the car to grab their things. “They didn’t mention the concert that I could see. I mean how does your city host a legend and you just pretend it’s not happening?”

“You said it yourself, it’s an underappreciated genre.” Joe tried to be casual but Cisco looked over at him instantly.

“Whoa. Everything okay? You know I’m totally willing to pay my half of the--”

Joe shot him a look. “What did I say?”

Cisco’s mouth quirked up. “If you see my wallet come out even once during this trip you’ll shoot me,” he parroted dutifully.

“Right.” Joe smiled at that, faint, and shook his head to let the punk behind the counter fade from his thoughts. It was way too good a night to worry about some stranger’s opinion.

They got their bags and headed back inside. Joe glared at the counter, but the guy was back behind his desk watching tv, his interest apparently dried up.

The room was pretty standard for a mid-range hotel. Bathroom right inside the door, a little closet, two beds standing a few feet apart, a big flatscreen on the wall facing them. A small desk and a couple of uncomfortable chairs. Joe dropped his bags on the furthest bed from the door, going to the window and looking down at the city below.

Cisco moved around behind him. “Okay, so no dancing, but I’m seriously starving. You think someone delivers here?”

Joe nodded back to the desk. “Check the drawer, there’s usually a list.”

“Ooh, hotel whiz.” Cisco padded closer, going to the desk.

Joe found himself watching Cisco’s reflection in the window as he dug through the drawer. His hair was hanging, hiding part of his face, but he pushed it back behind his ear absently as he leaned his hip against the desk and flipped through the guest information.

Joe couldn’t help a smile. He really was a good-looking guy, on a superficial level. That was without even adding in the smile that shone from him like it was its own source of light, and those fascinated eyes, that huge brain, the intense enthusiasm Cisco faced the world with. The way he’d listen to a person talk and make that person feel like everything that came out of their mouths was as worthy of study as...Heisenberg, or Schrodinger, those guys Barry used to go on about all the time.

Hell, so what if the jerk downstairs thought they were together, or sneaking around for a night, or whatever? Joe was older, but he wasn’t bad looking himself, and still in pretty good shape. He didn’t dress well enough to be mistaken for some kind of sugar daddy, he didn’t figure.  

Besides, Singh had jumped to thinking that Cisco was something to Joe, too. Maybe they did look like two people who could be easily mistaken for a couple.

How about that.

“Score. Pizza. Some kind of local place, but the menu looks promising. You want in on this?”

“Definitely.” Joe gathered himself and his dangerously wandering thoughts, and turned away from the window.

“Enjoy the view?”

It took him a moment. He drew in breath so fast he almost choked on it. “It’s downtown St. Louis from a fourth floor hotel room, I’m not about to Instagram it or anything.”

Cisco grinned, but his eyes stayed on Joe a moment too long. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Joe approached, holding his hand out for the menu. “Guy working the counter downstairs was kind of rude.”

That grin melted into a scowl. “Oh, really? These people don’t understand my Yelping powers, I will take this place down single-handedly.”

Joe chuckled. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed and study the garish, clashing menu that of course Cisco considered promising. It was hideous. “Stand down, kid, I handle worse every day at work.”

“You’re a _cop_ , Joe. I should let this go because he didn’t pull out a gun on you?”

“You should let it go because I’m thick-skinned enough to handle a little unwarranted insinuation.”

“Insinuation?” There was a beat of silence, before, “Ohhhh.” Cisco’s always-mutable expression shifted back to a smile. “Huh.”

Joe pushed out another chuckle, trying not to be as interested in Cisco’s reaction as he was. He meant to look back at the menu before Cisco’s eyes could catch on his, but he didn’t make it. He returned that smiling gaze with his own crooked, uncertain-feeling grin.

“Wow. I’m gonna go ahead and feel just super flattered by that.”

“Flattered?”

Cisco just smiled. “You own mirrors, don’t you?”

Joe’s face heated up, but he shook his head and hid his gaze in that awful menu. “I’m already buying the pizza, spare me the flattery.”

“What, you want specifics about how hot you are? You want me to go into detail?”

“Jesus, no.”

“This is great. What did he even say? He ask if you were slumming?”

“Stop that.” Joe hesitated, but went ahead and answered anyway, if only because those little throw-away put-downs Cisco tended to direct at himself bothered him more every time he heard them. “You ask me, I’d say he thought I was paying for it.”

“...for _me_?”

Joe nodded.

“No way, man, come on.”

“Yep.”

“But.” Cisco sputtered for a moment. “I’m wearing a Star Trek shirt,” he protested.

Joe blinked, looking up at him, and a moment later a laugh bubbled out of him. It was true, that shirt that looked so tight and plastered on down in the lobby had a huge faded graphic of a starship on it. “Well, you’re wearing it well,” he said through laughter.

Cisco peered down at himself, baffled, but he was smiling when his eyes came back up. His face was a little flushed, cheeks stained pink under golden brown.

Figured if anyone would get a thrill out of being mistaken for a hustler it would be Cisco Ramon.

Joe shook his head with a smile and held the menu out. “Get whatever you want, just make half pepperoni.”

“Boring.” Cisco approached.

Joe’s eyes moved without permission, taking in his faded t-shirt and tight jeans and...Jesus, he had to get himself together. But a glance back up at Cisco’s face showed the look hadn’t been unnoticed.

Cisco reached him without pausing, though. He slid the menu from Joe’s fingers and looked down at it for a moment before his gaze lifted to Joe’s face. “You know…”

Joe’s face still felt warm. It didn’t help that Cisco was close enough to reach out and touch him if he wanted to. “Let it go, kid.” His voice was unsteady.

Cisco hesitated. His teeth worried at his lip absently, which of course got Joe’s attention and focused his eyes on that full mouth.

It was insane. It was beyond stupid. But then all week Cisco had shown an uncanny ability to make the most unusual things seem perfectly normal. He sat at Joe’s table at ate his cooking, he brought him lunch at work, he talked him to sleep over the phone, and all as if they were perfectly normal things no one would think twice about.

And that’s how it felt, at least when it was happening. Perfectly normal. It wasn’t until later, until Cisco was gone and Joe couldn’t look into those openly affectionate eyes for reassurance, that he wondered. Even then, he didn’t wonder too hard. He had a full on sexual fantasy about the guy and was still waiting for some kind of guilt to hit him over that. But the guilt wasn’t coming.

Still, this...whatever this was, this moment...it was something completely different. This wasn’t a fantasy. And even if they’d been closer in age, even if Cisco wasn’t as wrapped-up in Barry’s life as he was, Joe still didn’t have any interest in the kind of complications that came from looking at someone’s mouth as intensely as he was looking at Cisco’s.

“I’m not actually a kid, Joe.” Cisco spoke suddenly, and Joe watched the words forming on his lips before he realized he was staring and pushed his gaze upward.

Jesus, that wasn’t any better. Cisco’s eyes hid nothing, hadn’t since the first day Joe met him at S.T.A.R. Labs. Joe had trusted him instantly, and still trusted him more than anyone else at that Lab, and he liked him, and it was a jerk in his stomach as he met that nervous but blatantly interested gaze.

Joe liked him.

Joe wanted him. Oh, _christ_.

It was way too easy to reach out, to curl his hand around Cisco’s waist, to feel the warmth of him under that thin Star Trek t-shirt. Joe’s breathing was less than steady, his thoughts a strange mixture of seeing absolutely nothing wrong with this and issuing a hundred warnings about it.

Cisco moved in closer, pressing between Joe’s legs at the edge of the bed. The menu fell from his hand, which Joe only noticed because that same hand came out and rested tentatively on Joe’s shoulder, as if Cisco expected to be pushed away any second.

But Joe wasn’t pushing him away. Joe had gone years without this heat in his stomach and this nervous excitement in his chest, and he’d forgotten the thrill of the feeling. Worlds away from a fantasy, this pull of attraction, of desire. Joe hadn’t wanted anyone in a long time, and he missed it.

He pulled at Cisco’s hip, urging him closer. “You’re not a kid,” he agreed, and his voice was a strange low rasp he hadn’t heard from himself before.

Cisco was close enough to a kid that later on Joe might think some dark thoughts, but when Cisco leaned in Joe met him halfway. When their mouths met, tentative but warm, Joe was kissing a genius, an attractive young man with great taste in music and a sense of humor that made Joe laugh out loud more than he ever had before. Not a kid.

Cisco breathed against his mouth, a soft sound coming out with the breath. His hand slid from Joe’s shoulder around to the back of his neck. His fingers were warm, steady now, no longer tentative. Joe tilted his head up, catching Cisco’s mouth more at an angle, deeper. His eyes slid shut, his hand traced a trail from Cisco’s narrow hip to his back, feeling the sweat from the concert still damp at his spine.

Cisco’s mouth was warm, full. Welcoming. He kissed like he was a little rusty himself, like he wasn’t even trying to disguise how eager he was. Which, knowing Cisco, was exactly the case. He gave more of himself to everything he did than anyone Joe had ever met. This fascinating combination of self-aware and completely open, afraid of compliments but not scared to let it be known that his entire heart was wrapped up in something.

Joe drew back, but Cisco made a small sound and followed him in, locking their mouths together again. He was impossible to resist, so Joe pressed back into the kiss, breathless and heated, before he drew back more insistently.

“Hey…”

Cisco let him go, breathing heavily, hand curling around the back of Joe’s neck as if to hold him in case he tried to go too far.

But Joe wasn’t leaving, he was just verifying. He looked up at Cisco, searched his face for any indication of problems. And what he got back was velvet brown eyes sparkling with want, and a damp, red mouth parted invitingly.

Joe fought back a groan. He slipped his hand under Cisco’s shirt, tracing up his spine. “Jesus, Cisco. C’mere.”

Cisco let out a breath, face radiating joy that way he always seemed to. He tried to press in impossibly closer, thighs already flush against Joe’s, before he gave up and shifted back.

Joe would have protested the distance but a second later Cisco was climbing right into his lap, pressing Joe’s legs closed to straddle his thighs.

Joe didn’t hold back his groan. His arms slid around him, pulling him in tighter, and Cisco’s mouth found his again eagerly. The encouragement seemed to light even more of a fire under Cisco, and his mouth was greedy, voracious. He kissed Joe like it was something he’d been wanting to do for a while.

Joe made a note to himself to maybe ask about that. But later. Right then he was too busy focused on the feeling of Cisco’s skin warm under his fingers, the bunch and flex of muscles, the restlessness of his kisses. He slid his other hand up and caught his fingers in long, soft hair as he cupped the back of Cisco’s head.

Joe had a sudden thought, and it made him muffle a laugh against Cisco’s mouth.

Cisco drew back almost instantly, a smile playing at his lips. “This is funny to you?” His hands moved between them, sliding up Joe’s chest.

“Just realized...I can’t really stay mad at that asshole downstairs now.”

Cisco laughed. “If that means you’re planning to leave money on the dresser and take off during the night...that’s not gonna work out so well for you.”

Joe shook his head, but his smile was uncontrollable. His fingers smoothed up Cisco’s back absently, and he watched pink spread over Cisco’s cheeks. “This is crazy.”

Cisco’s eyes focused on Joe’s for a moment, but he smiled at whatever he saw. No apprehension in sight. “We live in crazy times.”

That was true. What was this compared to metahumans and time travel? Joe’s eyes drifted down to those full, tempting lips again unconsciously. But he hesitated.

“Joe.” Cisco reached out and nudged at his jaw, tilting his gaze upward again. A smile was still hanging around the corners of his mouth, but he spoke firmly. “I’m not a kid. I have no daddy issues to work out. I’ve thought you were hot since you showed up at the lab marching around with your badge and gun in plain sight making sure we were gonna take care of Barry properly when you moved him.”

Joe chuckled, remembering that first visit to STAR. His impression of Cisco Ramon had been that he was too damned young to be trusted with Barry’s life. But first impressions, no matter what people said, didn’t last forever. And Cisco had saved Barry’s life by now, a few times over.

Cisco relaxed a little at whatever it was he saw so intently in Joe’s expression. Warm fingertips traced up Joe’s jawline, smoothing at the hair of his goatee. “Just. You wore the wedding ring, and you...so I was happy to lust from afar.”

“And I...what?” Joe leaned in. He couldn’t help himself. His lips found a warm patch of skin at Cisco’s throat, and he tasted the roughness of stubble on his skin.

Cisco’s breath caught, then escaped in a gust. “And...guys like you never look at me twice,” he admitted, his head tilting back to give Joe’s mouth more room to move.

Joe hummed a denial that was probably unnecessary, considering Cisco was in his lap. “I can’t stop looking at you lately,” he admitted, humming the words into Cisco’s neck. “I think you’re gorgeous.”

A small sound escaped Cisco, surprise or pleasure, something good at least. His hand stayed curved around the back of Joe’s neck, hair brushing against Joe’s temple. “Well. You’re old. Eyesight gets a little weak…” A breathless laugh escaped him even as Joe nipped at his skin with his teeth.

“You wanna see old?” Joe growled into Cisco’s throat. He slid his hands down his back and to his ass, down to his thighs, and he stood up in one swift move. Well, it would have been swifter fifteen years ago, but screw it. He was on his feet, Cisco in his arms, and he turned around to face the bed.

“Holy shit,” Cisco breathed out, wrapping his arms around Joe’s neck as his thighs squeezed Joe’s hips.

Joe humphed. That was more like it. He put a knee up on the mattress and bent, lowering Cisco onto the bed. He started to straighten, but Cisco didn’t let him go. His grip around Joe’s neck tightened, urging him down.

“Jesus, that was hot,” Cisco breathed against his mouth before kissing him, hard and wild.

Joe groaned and sagged, bracing his hands on the bed on either side of Cisco. He tasted sweet - the sugar from those drinks at the club, mixed with the earthiness of whiskey. They’d ended up sharing drinks when they ordered the same thing and ended up getting their cups mixed up as their focus stayed on stage. But the sugar was sweeter from Cisco’s mouth, and Joe couldn’t resist dipping his tongue in for a deeper taste.

Cisco arched up, still tugging at him as the kiss deepened. He wrapped his legs around Joe, crossing ankles against his ass and pulling him down until Joe was covering him. His head fell back, breathing hard, and he groaned like Joe’s full weight on him was some kind of incredible turn on.

Which was a pretty amazing turn on for Joe. He wrapped a hand around Cisco’s leg, stroking up the back of his thigh through the thick denim of the jeans he suddenly wished he’d been forward enough to strip off before they got to this point.

It hit him with that thought: they were alone in a hotel room, two hundred miles from any problems or interruptions. Cisco was warm and eager and arousing. Joe was just as eager, overheated and starting to get hard, and not regretting a bit of it.

This was going to happen.

He groaned, low and deep, and plunged into Cisco’s mouth again eagerly. It had been years, too many damn years, since he’d even wanted this with someone else, but he was there. Finally.

And his body was more than up for the challenge, it seemed. All the exhaustion from the concert was gone like he’d slept a full night between, and he was thickening in his slacks faster than a man his age probably should have.

He broke away from Cisco’s mouth, panting for air, wanting to taste that warm sweet skin at his neck again. His hips rocked unconsciously, and he had to fist his hand in the sheets by Cisco’s head as he felt the press of Cisco, hard in his jeans.

“Joe. Fuck.” Cisco’s voice was strained, thick with want, and his fingers clenched in Joe’s shirt as he arched his hips up to press into Joe. “Please.”

Joe’s eyes shut, unable to resist that voice and that want. His hips ground down against Cisco’s, his hand sliding up his thigh to his ass, clenching and pulling Cisco up to meet him.

Cisco’s head fell back, his mouth open, breath thick and loud between them. His hands were fisted in Joe’s shirt, and he tugged with sudden insistence. “Off.”

Joe would have chuckled if he hadn’t been so fucking aroused. He pushed up off Cisco enough to grab the hem of his shirt and pull, dropping it to the floor without looking and getting his palm fitted back against Cisco’s ass as fast as he could.

Cisco’s hands were quick, eager strokes all over his skin, up his chest and down his arms and over his shoulders to his back. “Fuck,” he breathed out again, and when Joe met his eyes they were almost black with desire. “You...are so…”

Joe bent and kissed him, tongue swallowing whatever words Cisco was planning to say. He didn’t need to hear it, he felt it. The kid couldn’t hide a damned thing, and if Joe ever had self-esteem issues that heavy black desire in Cisco’s eyes would have wiped it out of his head. He felt hot, felt sexy, felt arousing as all hell, and it was really fucking heady.

“Your turn,” he murmured against Cisco’s mouth, letting go of his ass reluctantly to grip his shirt. “Off.”

Cisco scrambled to obey, jerking his t-shirt up and arching his back up to pull it up over his head. He instantly slid his arms around Joe to tug him back down.

Joe resisted. “Let me look,” he said, voice low and firm.

Cisco hesitated, but shivered against him and lay back against the mattress.

Joe leaned down and kissed him, nipped at his lip before he drew back and took him in. He was trim with youth, smooth and flawless and vaguely soft in the middle from living off sugar and having boundless energy but no interest in gyms. His skin was like his smiles: lit from within. Glowing golden bronze against Joe’s darker whiskey skin.

Fuck, he was in deep.

Joe growled and bent, finding that spot on Cisco’s neck and mouthing wetly. “You are the sexiest…” He shifted downward, enough to seal his mouth over a brown nipple. “...baby giraffe video on Youtube,” he finished against Cisco’s skin.

There was a beat, and Cisco burst into laughter. “Everything I ever wanted to be,” he answered, hands stroking up Joe’s shoulders and down his back absently.

Joe wanted that laughter. He wanted it because he wanted to see it change as he slid his hand down between their bodies and palmed that hardness stretching Cisco’s tight jeans to capacity. And it was as gorgeous as Joe thought it would be, watching his laughter choke off, his grin melt in a moan, and his eyes flutter closed as he pushed up into that touch.

It had been years since Joe had any erection under his fingers that wasn’t his own. And years ago it hadn’t been anything serious. Some fumblings in college before he and Jackie got serious, and a couple of half-drunk rebound mistakes after she left. He didn’t have enough experience to have any kind of technique worked out, but just the pressure from the palm of his hand made Cisco’s mouth fall open, his skin flush and his back arch. So maybe technique wouldn’t be an issue.

“Hang on,” Cisco breathed out suddenly, reaching between them and splaying his hand against Joe’s chest. “Wait. I...I really didn’t think this through…”

Joe stilled instantly, pushing up to look down at him.

Cisco shifted, grimacing. “These jeans are _way_ too tight for this.”

Joe laughed, ducking down and catching his mouth in a kiss. “Let’s take care of that, then.”

“Oh hell yeah.” Cisco arched up enough to grab at the front of his jeans, unzipping and pushing them down quickly, fumbling a little in his haste.

“Hey.” Joe laughed, though it was gratifying to see more proof of how much Cisco wanted him. “Relax, nobody’s going anywhere.”

Cisco’s hands slowed, but the bright-eyed look he sent to Joe was heavy. “I usually wake up right around this point, I’m not risking it.”

Joe wanted to laugh, but the look in Cisco’s eyes stopped him. He leaned in, sliding his hand up Cisco’s cheek, and kissed him again uncontrollably. Cisco’s hands slid around him again, warm touch moving around his sides and to his back, pulling him in close. Joe groaned and reached blindly for Cisco’s forgotten jeans, tugging them down less gently than he should have. When he got them down past his hips he slid his hand up, finding Cisco’s erection easier with just a thin layer of cotton separating them.

Cisco whimpered against his mouth, his kiss going open-mouthed and hungry.

Joe was distracted, though, getting used to the feeling of hard flesh under his fingers again. He stroked over the outline of Cisco’s cock, palmed the head through his...quick glance down revealed boxers. Plain blue, un-geeked-out boxers. Joe was almost surprised by that.

Cisco looped his hands around Joe’s neck suddenly and tugged him down, rolling onto his side to put them side by side on the mattress. His hand slipped between them to Joe’s slacks, and he only bothered to unbutton and unzip halfway before he plunged his hand in.

Joe broke off their kiss and sucked in a breath as warm, calloused fingers caught against his own plain unmarked boxers, and slipped under the elastic of the waistband to find his stirring cock. He hadn’t put much thought into whether Cisco had experience at this, but the fingers that circled him were firm and confident.

“Fuck…” Heat shuddered through him, and he gritted his teeth as Cisco’s grip loosened enough to stroke him slowly. He panted against Cisco’s neck, shocked at how strong and fast the sensations were pulsing through him. “Wait. Let me…”

Cisco stilled his hand but didn’t let him go. “Mm?”

Joe hummed a wordless response, mouthing at Cisco’s neck as he rolled their bodies closer, sliding his knee between Cisco’s legs to lace them tight together. Cisco took the hint fast, freeing his hand to clench his hands around Joe’s ass and hold him in place.

Their boxers were still in the way, but the fabric helped as they slid against each other. Joe’s cock was solid by then, thick and eager pushing into Cisco’s matching erection.

“God. Joe.” Cisco’s voice was thickened with arousal, pitched a little lower than usual, and Joe absorbed that fact the way he absorbed everything else about the man.

There was nothing all that storybook about a guy’s first time in years being this college-style frotting, but Joe felt too damned good to even slow down. Wasn’t like they had a stock of supplies for anything more complicated, and from the sounds Cisco was making he had no complaints either.

He dipped his head in and kissed his way up Cisco’s throat, tasting the salt of sweat building up on his skin. He could feel Cisco’s pulse fast and strong against his lips and tongue. Next time, he promised himself, or sometime soon at least, he would take his time and do this again, focus on every last sensation that made that pulse get faster against his mouth.

Cisco’s breath caught more and more as they moved together. His hands slipped from Joe’s own sweat-slicked skin and gripped again harder, blunt fingernails scraping over him in a way that made Joe arch and hiss and grind down into him. Joe pushed at Cisco’s shoulder, pressing him flat into the mattress again and sliding on top of him without worrying about keeping his weight off.

Cisco’s legs slid up and apart, holding Joe between them, and he pulled and tugged at his body with every thrust, like he was trying to drag Joe deeper into his own skin. Joe dropped his head down, forehead rocking against Cisco’s shoulder as he rolled his hips faster to match the throb of body, the heat rising in him too fast to be slowed.

Cisco laced a hand around his neck, driving up into his body with each push, gasping and cursing and moaning in turn. He was as vocal in bed as he was any other time, apparently, but his eloquence took a hit. Joe wondered what it would take to make him nonverbal.

Another item to add to his mental list for the future.

Cisco let go first. His hand gripped Joe’s neck, his other clenched against Joe’s ass and pulling him in tighter. His head fell back, his mouth opened, his back arched. Joe had to pry his eyes open to watch, but no way he was gonna miss it. And yeah, it was fucking beautiful, that shock of pleasure coming over Cisco’s expressive face. The whine of his voice as he gasped out Joe’s name before even that choked off.

Joe felt a wave of warmth inside. He felt suddenly inexpressibly fond of the man under him, and it just made everything feel that much brighter and sharper. He didn’t slow his own rolling hips, moving against the hot press of Cisco’s welcoming body as he felt the pressure low in his gut that meant he wasn’t going to be far behind.

Cisco was still panting for air, his legs wrapped tight around Joe, when Joe felt the clench of his own orgasm. He buried his face against Cisco’s neck, tensing all over and groaning low and long. It had been too long. Too long, too many years of only ever doing this on his own, and his body knew the difference. His cock pulsed into his boxers once and then again and again and fuck, _fuck_ …

His hips were reluctant to slow, even when his muscles started to complain and the heavy pleasure of lethargy started filling his limbs. Didn’t help that Cisco refused to let him go, still meeting his hips with little grunts of pleasure. But Joe finally managed to draw away, to leave a last open-mouthed kiss against Cisco’s shoulder as he rolled away and dropped on his back, breathing hard.

There was silence for a few breathless moments, but Cisco rolled on his side to face Joe and slid in a little closer. “Can I...do you…?”

Joe chuckled, the sound low and sleepy. “C’mere.” He stretched out an arm and smiled as Cisco slipped happily into place against him. It was already too warm in that bed, even above the covers, but there wasn’t an atom in Joe’s body that wanted to complain about Cisco curling in around him.

And it didn’t stop his brain from shutting down and his eyes from closing after just another minute or two. With Cisco’s head on his chest, and his fingers twined through long dark hair, Joe slept.

 

* * *

 

There was an ongoing sensation of expectancy where Cisco Ramon was concerned. There had been through this last long week, anyway. This feeling that everything was too easy and too simple, and that just didn’t make sense so it couldn’t possibly last.

He’d felt it even after that first dinner invite, watching Cisco moving around in Joe’s home and waiting for the moment that they both realized how strange it was that he was there. But that moment never came.

It kept on never coming. Even when he woke up in a strange bed, chilled, in damp boxers, and alone. Joe didn’t have time for that clench of worry, the certainty that this was when things had gone too far and the downward plunge was going to begin.

He didn’t have time because it was the door to the room closing that had woken him up in the first place, and when he blinked fuzzy eyes towards the door he saw Cisco coming in from outside, hands full.

Cisco switched on a lamp, shooting a look at the bed instantly, as if to see if the light would wake Joe. He broke out in a smile the moment he saw Joe’s eyes open and on him, and he approached and dropped to sit on the edge of the bed, dumping a couple of bags of stuff with him.

“I cheated. I did open my wallet on this trip. But since you weren’t there to see me do it the letter of our agreement is intact and I feel like I ought to remain un-shot.”

Joe laughed, and it was equal parts amusement and relief that this streak of non-strangeness was going right on full steam.

Cisco was wearing his concert clothes, his hair tied back and sleek, still damp from a shower that Joe was surprised hadn’t woken him up. He held out one of his two bags of goodies. “The pizza place was closed, I had to fast food it.”

The smell from the bag shot right to Joe’s stomach: grease and salt and whatever but it was hot and edible. He reached for it fast, grabbing a wrapped burger and handing the bag back. “I better shower before I get too comfortable.”

“Can I watch?” Cisco grinned. “You don’t have to, it’s really late. Or early, I guess. Though. I was hoping…”

“What?”

He lofted the second brown bag he’d brought in.

Joe reached for it and peered in. He wasn’t too surprised to see a box of condoms and a generic clear bottle he didn’t have to guess too hard about. He dropped the bag on the bed and groaned, though it was hard to ignore his flush.

“I guess you’re about to learn one of the downsides to spending a night with a man almost twice your age.”

Cisco just raised an eyebrow. “We’ll see.” He hesitated, smiling faintly. “I just...if tonight’s a one-shot deal then I don’t wanna waste it.”

Joe wanted to answer instantly, because he already had a mental list of things he wanted to do with Cisco, and it hadn’t occurred to him that this was just some kind of road-trip phenomenon.

But then...he hadn’t thought it through, really. After tonight was home, and life the way he knew it. Iris and Barry, his job, the metas and the craziness. The same life he’d spent the last few years deliberately not complicating with a relationship. Maybe this whole thing didn’t feel weird yet, but he wasn’t going to make any promises based on a lack of strangeness. He needed to think.

His silence, he knew, was conspicuous. He swung his feet to the floor and pushed up, stretching. “Shower,” he decided. The rest could wait for a little while.

Cisco just smiled, small and contained.

Joe padded to the bathroom, unwrapping his burger and downing it in the thirty seconds it took him to turn on the water and blink at himself in the mirror.

He didn’t look too bad. Maybe not quite sharp enough to be some twenty-three year old’s plaything, but not bad all in all. There was grey at his temples, a little through his goatee. The whorls of hair on his chest and at his groin were still solid black, at least. He was fit, able to study himself from all sides in just his boxers without making a face. Broad, solid, but he’d always been that.

He could run down a criminal - provided that criminal wasn’t super-powered - and that’s what mattered. He definitely wasn’t as young as he used to be, but he was strong enough in who he was not to mind too much.

He stripped to get into the shower, and his thoughts went to the way Cisco had looked at him earlier. The way those looks made him feel; sexy and strong, powerful. Desirable. Those feelings - hell, the whole night - were something he wouldn’t mind having in his life.

The whole week, really. (It was only a week, he couldn’t lose sight of that fact.) The meals and the conversations and the texts, the late night calls, the laughing and the music. That was nice, it made him realize just how closed-off his life had become the last few years. Now that Iris and Barry were grown and not around to keep him company, he’d gotten used to silence. But he didn’t like it. He wasn’t made for it.

He liked company and conversation. He liked laughing along with someone. He’d told Cisco over that first dinner that it was just too late to dive back into that kind of life, dating and juggling priorities and everything. But this week proved that he’d been wrong. More than that, it proved he needed that kind of life. He wanted it. It was good for him.

He and Cisco...they were friends first. This thing between them tonight, that was unexpected. Cisco apparently had thought about it before - had dreams about it, so he said - but Joe didn’t have many doubts that if tonight really was a one-time deal that Cisco would still be around, texting and talking music and making him laugh.

Still, there was no denying that from the first moment Joe felt the pull of lust, he responded like a man in need. So he wanted companionship, and he wanted desire.

Question was, was Cisco himself the sort of complication Joe needed? He was young. Undoubtedly, undeniably young. Younger than Iris, younger than Barry, and that kind of thing had a huge impact. He was also knee-deep in the strangest part of Joe’s life, the metas and Barry’s abilities.

Complications all over the place. Dangerous complications.

And not just dangerous because of the metas. Singh himself had warned Joe that dating a man would make his job complicated, and Singh had a decade of proof to back it up. Then there was Iris and Barry and their possible reactions to think about. They had never known Joe to date anyone more than once. They were both warm and kind and open-minded, the way he raised them to be, but sometimes when things got close to home people’s beliefs got...tested. Did he need to test them all that way?

Especially considering that he didn’t have to choose Cisco in order to get companionship. There was Sherry, who had been so openly interested. She was beautiful, and beyond that she was Joe’s age, and a more socially acceptable gender. Maybe he wouldn’t like her as much as he liked Cisco. But maybe he’d end up liking her more.

Maybe the next person to come around would be even better for him. Now that he knew he was in a good place in his life to start looking again, did he really need to contemplate staying with the first person who caught his eye?

So,his options: he could stick with Cisco, and deal with the layers and layers of complications it would involve all to make sure that when he felt that streak of lust in his gut, it was Cisco’s warm brown eyes looking back at him. Or he could go out and find something new, something perfect and easy and uncomplicated. Call Sherry, maybe, or explore a thousand other options. Explore the whole wide-open world.

When he studied it from all sides, it wasn’t a hard choice to make.

By the time he left the bathroom behind, towel wrapped around his waist because his boxers were stiff and clammy and belonged on the floor where he left them, he felt sure of himself. Wouldn’t be the easiest conversations ahead of him, but when Joe West made up his mind about something that was that.

Cisco had turned on the TV while Joe was in the shower. He was under the covers of the bed they’d been sleeping in, leaving the other one undisturbed. His t-shirt was still on, though his jeans were back in a heap on the ground.

He looked over as Joe stood in the doorway. “Fries are cold. And these aren’t quality fries to begin with, so. Eat at your own risk.”

Joe approached. He climbed onto the bed on his knees, and leaned right in to Cisco’s space. He wanted to run his hands through that long hair again, but it was tied back so he settled for slipping his hand around the back of Cisco’s neck.

Cisco’s eyes widened, but he leaned in and met Joe in a slow, easy kiss.

“I thought about what you said,” Joe said against his mouth before kissing him again. He tasted like salt and cheap burgers. “About this being a one-shot deal.”

Cisco drew back, hand sliding up Joe’s arm. He schooled his expression, but there was hope in his eyes bright enough to be a neon sign.

Joe smiled. “I don’t like that idea.”

If hope was neon then happiness was a full-on sunrise as it spread over Cisco’s face. “Oh,” he said through a grin big enough to shape the sound of the word. “Well. Guess I can take the condoms back to the--”

“We’re still gonna need those.”

Cisco laughed, and this time it was him that leaned in, tilting his head up to catch Joe’s mouth in a kiss.

“Hey, you know. The guy downstairs? I asked him where to grab a bite to eat, and he asked if we were a thing, you and me.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “I should file some kind of complaint about that guy.” He tugged out the sheets beside Cisco and slid into bed, pulling the towel out and dropping it on the floor.

Cisco made a show of trying to get a peek. “He wanted to know if you were local.” He stretched out the grease-spotted fast food bag. “Eat, there’s like three more burgers if you don’t want the nasty-ass fries. And you don’t.”

Joe took the bag obediently and dug out another burger. “Local? Why would he…?”

“Pretty sure he was gonna fish for your number next,” Cisco reported with a grin, passing over a pile of napkins. “Your whole grouchy-detective thing must’ve turned his crank.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Joe laughed, though, shaking his head as he started on his food. “I think he was even younger than you are.”

Cisco shot him a look. “Nobody’s younger than me. Nobody at all. I am the youngest person alive. I was born three minutes ago, during this chilly late night--”

“Okay, okay.” Joe chuckled. “I’ll shut up about it.”

“Believe it when I see it, but any effort would be appreciated.”

“What are we watching?”

Cisco glanced over at the tv. “Some kind of crappy low-budget Easter movie or something. Doesn’t matter.”

“No?”

“Nope. We’re only gonna watch until you’re done eating. Then I’m gonna suck you off.”

He almost choked on his burger. He looked over at Cisco.

Cisco smiled innocently. “If you want.”

Christ, that smile. Cisco had a whole arsenal of them, he was constantly smiling, but this one was especially killer. Bright but wicked, innocent but knowing exactly what he was doing to Joe.

Joe had to look away, flushing, feeling his body twitching in interest. “This is gonna kill me, isn’t it?”

Cisco hummed in answer. “It might. You really are very, very, _very_ old.”

Joe growled and folded the wrapper around his half-eaten burger, dropping it back in the bag. “I also know when I’m being manipulated,” he said, his voice gruff as he twisted to face Cisco.

“Well, my manipulations aren’t very subtle.” Cisco was already tugging off his shirt again, flushed and glowing. “And I’m pretty sure I’m not pushing you into something you don’t actually want.”

“No argument there.” Joe’s hands seemed to gravitate to Cisco the moment his shirt was off. He traced his fingers along his shoulders, down his arms, around his sides to his back.

Right choice, he told himself easily. Definitely made the right choice, because as beautiful as Sherry had been she hadn’t made his mouth water like this, or made his hands feel needy without skin under his fingers.

Right choice.

The next hour didn’t kill him. The next hour was slow, agonizingly slow, but Joe was making up for a lot of lost time. He wanted to memorize the feel of Cisco’s body under his hands, the smooth and soft and hard places, the sensitive spots that made him laugh or pant or whimper. He wanted to taste every sound that came out of Cisco’s mouth.

He felt greedy for him, for this kid he’d really only spent the last week getting to know. Was that strange? He wasn’t sure. He’d lost track of how normal people behaved in new relationships. All he knew was that everything he did made Cisco moan and cry out and touch Joe, look at Joe, like Joe was everything he’d been waiting for.

It was easy. Everything was so damned easy with Cisco, and natural, and right. There might come a time when that wouldn’t be the case. But holding on to him, burying his face in heated skin and mouthing the curve of muscle and feeling the callouses of Cisco’s engineer hands on his own body, every sensation was perfect.

It didn’t make Joe mourn for all the years he’d spent alone when he could have felt things like this. It wasn’t so starry-eyed as him thinking that he’d been saving it all up until he met Cisco, but there was still a feeling of satisfaction in it. Like if he was going to deprive himself then at least it led to this.

And frankly he was okay with not having a lot of previous memories to distract him, because the sight of Cisco kneeling between his legs, mouth taking in his cock with excruciating slowness, it deserved a spotlight around it. The feeling of wet heat closing in around him, the hungry sounds that escaped from Cisco’s mouth, the way Cisco’s hands gripped his hips until the burn of fingernails felt like it was leaving permanent marks, the way he jerked himself off frantically as Joe got closer to coming, like it was just too hot to resist the urge...all of that Joe wanted to keep separate from every other damned thing in his brain. He wanted to hang on to it, to let it warm him on cold nights, to see it in his dreams, to let it distract himself at work.

He had absolutely no idea what was waiting for them back in Central City or how this was all going to play out once real life kicked back in. But it was worth it. Christ, Jesus, fuck was it worth it.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, daddy! How was the concert?”

Getting a phone call from Iris early in the morning wasn’t unexpected at all. They often had to catch up that way now that they didn’t see each other over breakfast or have a chance to leave each other notes whenever they needed to.

Joe felt a little strained when he answered, considering he was still pretty worn out - and pretty damned chipper - from the night before, until her easy, happy tone relaxed him again. He grinned even as he lofted their two bags into the back of the car and shut the trunk. “Baby, I know you won’t appreciate this, but...oh, man.”

“Oh god, you’re not gonna say something unforgivably corny about it being ‘funktastic’ or something, are you?”

Joe laughed. He leaned against the car, content to shut his eyes and feel the sun on his skin as he listened to his baby girl’s voice in his ear. “Wouldn’t dream of it. It was amazing, that’s all. Worth it. I feel like I’m twenty again.”

“Wow, that’s something I’m almost sorry to be missing. You’re coming home in time for dinner, right? I was planning to cook but Eddie found the most unbelievable little Latin fusion place. We ate there last night and I’m hooked. I want it again.”

“Well then by all means, let dad treat the happy couple to a dinner out.”

“Thanks, dad!” She was moving around on her end, no doubt getting ready for a day working. Her schedule was unpredictable now that she was working for the paper. “Drive safe, okay? Tell Cisco I said hi.”

He ignored a little spread of heat up his face. “I will. Don’t work too hard.”

“But then how would I ever take over this city before I’m thirty?”

“Sorry, my bad, work your fingers to the bones.”

“Damn right.” She laughed as she hung up the call, and he stood there for a moment, listening to the echoes of the sound. He didn’t hear it near often enough these days.

“That was either Barry or Iris.”

He opened his eyes to see Cisco standing at the other side of the car, watching him with a grin. “Hey. Ready to go?”

“Yep. I double-checked the room, turned the keys in, we are free men. I didn’t even officially complain about Mr. Nosy from last night. Though I can’t promise there’s not some aggressive Yelping in my future.”

“You do what you gotta do, kid.”

Cisco made a face at the nickname, but slid into the passenger seat as Joe unlocked the car.

As he pulled them out of the parking lot and headed towards the highway, Joe felt his mood getting a little pensive. Home was three hours away. Home and work and family and everything it meant, and Joe West loved his life but something was pressing at his chest a little.

“Iris, then.”

He glanced over at Cisco. “Mm?”

“On the phone. It was Iris.”

He blinked, but tried to smile. “Guess who gets to have Peruvian paella twice in one week?”

“Oh yeah? Hey, remind me before we get home, I’ll tell you some off-menu ordering you should do that’ll totally impress her.”

“Nice.” Joe smiled, but it faded after a moment. “How’d you know it was her?”

“You don’t get tense about Barry. But you do when you talk about her lately.”

“Tense?”

Cisco was quiet for a minute. He fiddled with the iPod he’d been all set to score their drive home through. “Can I ask you something? Not that it’s my business, I know, I’m not acting like I have some kind of right to invade your life just because we…”

“Just ask,” Joe said with a faint smile, pulling them onto I-70 smoothly.

“Why doesn’t she know about Barry?”

Joe wasn’t sure he expected that question, but he didn’t feel much surprise at it. He let out a breath, and kept his answer simple. “I need her separate. I need her safe.”

Cisco didn’t answer. He started scrolling screens on his iPod.

Joe focused on the road, trying not to think of all the holes in even that brief answer. Everything that made Iris unsafe already, every way she was already too close. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about that with anyone. Even Cisco.

“So I don’t know how much Barry tells you about what goes down at the Lab,” Cisco said after a long pause. Long enough that Joe wasn’t sure at first if he was changing the subject or not. “But I have made one or two mistakes the last few months that could be classified as near-fatal. I mean, I thought they were for the best at the time, but...hindsight. You know.”

“I know.”

“Well, Barry’s rightfully called me out when I do dumb things like that. And it’s funny, but what it always boils down to is that he gets why I did whatever I did, he just can’t get over my doing it in secret and keeping it from everyone. But I mean, hell, I already explained to you the attitude towards secrecy in that place, you can’t blame me for not suddenly being all sharing-is-magic about stuff.”

Joe glanced over at him for a moment before dragging his eyes back to the road. “Everybody--”

“What it always seems to come down to,” Cisco went on quickly, “is that Barry would have been safer if he knew the full truth. And that’s just logic right there. You have to know the variables to formulate any kind of plan, right?”

Not a change of subject, then. Joe sighed. “It’s different with Iris.”

“Yeah?” Cisco answered mildly, sounding nothing but curious.

Joe didn’t need to hear doubt, though, he inserted it in himself. “She’s my baby.”

He could feel Cisco’s eyes on him, but he didn’t turn to look. After a moment a song finally started, soft instrumentals coming through the car speakers.

Joe smiled absently when he recognized the song. One of Ella’s, that he’d told Cisco over red beans and rice that it was one of his all-time favorites.

_You go to my head..._

“If you asked her about it, what do you think she’d say? If you told her that you had a secret, that it might put her life at risk but it involved Barry and it was dangerous…”

“She would want to know.” Joe frowned, focusing on the car a good hundred feet in front of them. “She’d demand to know.”

“Yep, seems like that kind of person to me.”

Cisco didn’t say anything else, and Joe was glad about that. Not much else to say, really. It was never all that logical, keeping things from her. Especially once she got the blog going. She’d been grabbed by one meta already, and now she was basically employed to be the person who knew The Flash, so the whole city associated her with him. She and The Flash were linked. Nothing he could do to stop it now.

Keeping the truth from her was unfair. But it was also the only thing he could do, as a father. He couldn’t watch out for her now that she lived with Eddie. He couldn’t tell her pretty stories about the heroes and villains of the world now that she was an adult. He was powerless to protect his baby girl, and he had never been that before.

Everything was about Iris. Since she was born, she was his life. The ring he’d always worn, married or divorced, had been a constant reminder of who was first in his life. Barry had come along to join her, but he never supplanted her. Nothing could. She was his baby.

She was an adult. God help him, she was in danger either way. There was nothing he could do but accept it.

Of course that was the hardest thing he could possibly be made to do.

“My brother…”

Joe glanced over, surprised.

Cisco looked straight out the windshield, his profile set. “I’ve got two. Both older. Dante, he’s the golden boy. He’s the one my folks adore. Wanted to be a pianist growing up, but…” He frowned.

Joe had to get his eyes back on the road, but he listened carefully.

“Armando was the oldest. My ma used to say she made all her mistakes with him, had things down for Dante and me. He was pretty rough, I guess. You know the place we lived, its reputation and all. Armando was all up in that kind of stuff. Gangs, drugs, the whole deal. I thought he was the most awesome guy alive when I was a kid. Remember I told you about my brother first putting headphones on me and helping me focus using music? That was Mando.”

“Was the oldest?” Joe repeated after a moment.

“He died when I was sixteen. Not too long after the headphones. Total cliche of a crime-doesn’t-pay sort of death, too, not even worth going into. I’m sure there’s records you could look up if you were really curious.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“You can. Permission granted or whatever. Mostly because the odds of me talking about it again are slim.”

Joe nodded, understanding.

“Anyway, everything changed when he died. Dante had wanted to go to school to study piano. He got into a college, not fancy like Julliard but a good music program. Except then Mando died. And in my family, leaving wasn’t an option anymore. My mom and dad just lost their son. They had to be taken care of. So Dante gave up his dream and college and all of it. He started working. Keeping the bills paid and making things easier on our folks.”

“What about you?” Joe asked carefully, trying to sound casual. He had a feeling this was something it didn’t do to press Cisco about. Not given how fast he was to clam up when things turned to him in most other conversations.

“I graduated high school two years early, got a handful of scholarships to CCU.” Cisco let out a breath, unsteadiness audible. “I left. Got a dorm maybe ten miles from the Heights, but you’d’ve thought I was setting up on the moon the way they reacted. I mean...it didn’t matter, I guess. A block away or another country, the point was I left. Me and my folks...we never really…” He sighed. “We never got along all that well, but now I might as well be invisible.”

Joe frowned, glancing over at him as much as the traffic allowed. “Because you went to college?”

“My parents are traditional, Joe. Family is everything. There’s nothing strange about Dante giving up his dreams to support his parents. Nothing strange about him still living at home. What’s strange is leaving. College and career or not, it’s...unforgivable. I was seventeen, it was a year after Armando was buried, ma was laughing at the dinner table again. My pop wanted me to start a shop, can you imagine it? Because I’m good at ‘tinkering’ with things. He thought I could be a repairman, fix TVs and laptops and whatever. Live at home, be with family. And I could have. That’s the kicker. Wouldn’t have been a great life, but it was livable.”

He cleared his throat of raggedness. “But I left. And I didn’t know that it was unforgivable. I probably should have. I probably would have left anyway. But...look, the point of all this is...something that you think is just a little mistake, you can lose people over it. You can lose your whole family in one move. So. I don’t know.”

Joe reached over and held out a hand.

Cisco took it after a few seconds, and grasped tightly. He pressed the screen of the iPod, and the fading song suddenly started up again from the beginning.

This time when Ella started singing they both sang along.

 

* * *

 

“You weren’t kidding about that concert making you twenty again,” was all Iris said as they were saying goodbye after dinner.

“What do you mean?”

She drew back from their hug and searched his face, smiling after a moment. “You look happy. Really happy.”

He grinned helplessly. “I feel pretty happy,” he admitted.

But on the way home it didn’t take his grin long to fade. He had one more secret from Iris now, and he wasn’t doing too well with the ones he already had.

There was habit in it, habit going back her entire life. Joe’s job, Iris’s mother, he didn’t want those things to affect her when she was a kid. She knew her dad was a cop, of course, but he did his best to distance ‘cop’ from anything they showed in movies or on TV. Really, there wasn’t much deceit involved in that, until the last year or two. Joe had only fired his gun a couple of times before the last year. Most cops never fired at all.

Still, he’d always exaggerated how dull and routine it all was. He did it to keep fear from her eyes. And from Barry’s, once he moved in. The boy had just lost his parents to violence, the last thing he needed was to live in fear that his new home would be broken up the same way. And the last thing Iris needed was to think she could be next in line to suffer the way Barry was suffering.

Joe kept his real worries and gripes about the job to himself, and he reassured his kids every night that he was always going to come home to them. So in a way he’d been lying to her most of her life. He wasn’t sure anyone would fault him for those early lies, though, and now he was just getting ridiculous about it.

He wasn’t sure why he’d thought he’d have a little time before this new secret started to become an issue. He should have known from her phone call that morning that leaving Cisco out of their talks was going to lead to a lot more obfuscations and outright lying.

Unforgivable, Cisco had warned him earlier. Sometimes things you thought were understandable and right could be unforgivable. Joe couldn’t honestly see Iris holding anything against him to that degree, as long as he wasn’t outright hurting anyone. But there was a lot of gray area between understanding and unforgivable, and she could end up way too close to the wrong side of it.

When he got home from dinner he was pensive. Barry had already turned in for the night, so there was no one to conceal his mood around. That left Joe alone with his feelings again, and that wasn’t something he particularly wanted.

“Hey, how was dinner?” Cisco’s voice was warm in his ear when he answered the phone.

Joe settled into bed and turned off the light, and sighed in answer.

“That good?”

“No, it was. It was good. I mean I still have some growing to do as a person before I’m entirely comfortable spending time with my little girl and her live-in boyfriend, who happens to be my partner. But all things considered…”

“Mm. Yeah, that sounds like it has amazing potential for awkwardness.”

More or less awkwardness than Joe dating a guy younger than Iris? He sighed at that thought, annoyed at himself. He made his choice, damn it. He knew what he was signing up for, and Iris was right: it made him happy.

He just needed to get on with dealing with the possible downsides before they had a chance to overshadow that happiness.

“I didn’t tell her,” he said, shutting his eyes in the darkness and keeping the phone tight against his ear.

“What, about me?” Cisco didn’t sound surprised. “It’s up to you. Just let me know what lead to follow, with Barry and all.”

“I just need some time.”

“Joe. It’s fine.” Joe could hear the smile in Cisco’s voice. Warm and understanding and easy, like he always was.

He sighed, all that understanding making him feel even worse about his hesitation.

“Really, okay? This has been a pretty amazing weekend all around, I have no complaints. You gave me a lot, whatever happens from here.”

“Hey.” Joe frowned. “Me not knowing how to talk to my daughter about a love life I haven’t had in years doesn’t have anything to do with you and me. I’ll admit things would be a little easier if you were…”

“Older? Female? Not Barry’s goofy nerd pal?”

Joe couldn’t argue with any of those, but hearing them just made his frown deepen. “I like you. This weekend was amazing for me too, you know. Deciding to keep seeing you, that’s a choice I made easily, and I’m not second-guessing myself.”

Cisco laughed quietly in his ear. “Then relax, because I’m seriously okay with you needing some time to get a grip on it.”

Joe hummed, but relaxed obediently. He wasn’t sure he bought it entirely - Cisco was too damned quick to write himself off, even just conversationally, and that meant something. But that wasn’t something Joe was going to be able to fix for him. He would just have to do everything he could to help.

He sighed again.

“So. What’re you wearing, hot stuff?”

Joe shook in quiet laughter. “Really?”

“Hey. It’s late, I’m already in bed, and you’re the guy I’m ‘seeing’. Why not?”

Joe smiled, but he couldn’t ignore the little tingles of warmth that went through him.

He shut his eyes and tried to imagine Cisco lying down in the dark just like he was. He hadn’t managed to catch him sleeping when they were at the hotel; Cisco woke up first and didn’t seem like the kind of guy who wallowed under covers.

Joe kept his eyes shut and focused on the feeling of laying there with Cisco curled against him. “I’d rather you were here in person.”

“No argument here. But.”

“But,” Joe agreed. He slipped his hand under the covers and down to his stomach. “I’m not sure ‘what’re you wearing’ is exactly my kind of style, though.”

“No?” Cisco’s voice was already softer, a little more breathy than it had been. “So what’s your style?”

“Guess we’ll find out together.” Joe laughed quietly.

There was a rustle over the phone, and Cisco breathed in his ear quietly. “I was thinking about you before you called.”

“Yeah?”

“I get the feeling that’s gonna be happening a lot,” Cisco confirmed, his voice low. “I used to have these dreams sometimes, little fantasies or whatever, but...oh, man.”

There was a note in his voice that made Joe’s body spark with heat. He slid his palm down his boxers and breathed in at the tease of stimulation. “Yeah,” he said, his voice a rumble. “It was good. It was so good...”

“You know what I can’t stop thinking about?” Cisco asked into the hush of darkness.

“Mm?”

“The way you looked at me when we...those detective eyes of yours, like you don’t miss a thing, but you looked at me like everything you saw was…”

“Beautiful,” Joe completed, since he knew Cisco wouldn’t. “Everything. The way you look, and feel, the way you breathe when I touch you.” He sucked in a breath, boxers tented under his hand.

Cisco let out a shaky breath in his ear. “I’m not new to this, you know, but no one’s ever looked at me like that. I watched you long as I could, but…”

“Mm, me too. Watched until I couldn’t anymore.” Until the pleasure was too much and his focus moved to his own body. Until he was lost in how Cisco felt around him, against him. On top of him, shivering under his hands. Bent between his legs, taking Joe in his mouth inch by inch and moaning like he was the most decadent thing Cisco had ever tasted...

“Christ.” He pushed his boxers down and grasped his cock, stroking slowly as Cisco’s breathing hitched in his ear. He wanted Cisco’s cock in his hand, Cisco’s rough hand around him, but that unsteady breathing in his ear would have to be enough.

And it was. They were done talking, and he was pretty sure their minds were both on the same moments from the night before as he groaned and Cisco’s voice choked in wordless answer. He fisted himself, quicker than usual but timed with Cisco’s panting breath.

Cisco came first, gasping out Joe’s name on a sobbed breath, but it didn’t take Joe long to follow. He drove up into his fist and dropped his head back, phone clenched in his hand as he gritted his teeth and erupted into his boxers.

Then there was nothing but Cisco’s slowing breaths in his ear, and his own heart slowing its pounding in his chest.

He wanted to say something, but nothing felt appropriate. He angled and tugged to strip off his boxers, using the fabric to clean himself off and dropping it to the floor. He rolled on his side, feeling flushed and limp and content.

“Night, Joe,” Cisco murmured in his ear, voice thick and heavy.

Joe echoed the words, but neither of them hung up. He lay there and listened to Cisco breathe as sleep took him over.

 

* * *

 

He woke up with a dead battery and a smile on his face, and a sudden determination.

Iris’s smile was surprised and pleased when she looked up from her desk and saw him there. “Dad!”

He stretched out the Jitters cup. “All those times you brought me coffee at work, I’ve got some favors to return.”

She took the cup and drew it in close, inhaling. “You’re a lifesaver. I didn’t have time to stop this morning, and the coffee here…”

He looked around the bright, open floor of the newspaper workroom, perching on the edge of her desk. “This is nice. I was expecting something a little less...modern. Aren’t newspapers becoming fossils?”

“We do a pretty huge online business too,” she said proudly, looking around. “Apparently the web edition has doubled in registered readers and almost tripled in daily hits since The Flash started showing up.” She sent him a wide, confident smile. “I’m not saying I single-handedly saved this place before I ever got a job here, but…”

“You’re not _not_ saying it,” he finished easily. He knew his little girl.

“Exactly.” She laughed. “Don’t you have work? Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

She introduced him to a couple of people as they headed out, and he warmed helplessly at the pride in her eyes when she said ‘my dad, Detective Joe West’ each time. That pride right there, that was worth every criminal he put behind bars. It was worth everyone who got away, everything he was too late for, every ounce of frustration and worry and helplessness.

It had always been for her. Everything had been for her since the day she was born. He got bogged down sometimes in the right ways to express his love, weighing lies with safety and secrets with seeing her smile, but the love itself was still the single greatest thing in his life. Always would be.

He wasn’t altogether surprised when they got outside into the damp morning air and she stopped them on the sidewalk and faced him squarely.

“What’s going on?” Her gaze told him he hadn’t been as casual as he’d thought.

This time he didn’t waste time worrying about what to say. “I’ve started seeing someone.”

Surprise made her eyes widen. “What?”

He just shrugged, smiling uncertainly.

“Dad, seriously? Not just a date, actually…”

“Seeing. Relationship. I think. It’s still...it’s new.”

“Oh my God!” She jumped at him, throwing an arm around him and remembering the coffee in her other hand just in time. “Dad, that’s great! Who is she? When can I meet her?”

He hugged her back tightly. “It’s complicated,” he said, trying not to worry too much about how far away from her expectations his reality was going to be.

She drew back at that, studying him. “Complicated.”

“Yeah. New.” He smiled after a moment. “Unexpected. In more ways than you can imagine.”

She studied him all the more intently. “When can I meet them?”

He let out a breath at the revised question, and her answering smile, small though it was, told him that somehow, just like that, she understood at least part of why this was so complex.

“Give me some time to make sure it looks like it’s going to stick.”

“Fair enough.” She reached out and tweaked his tie. “I just want you happy, dad. We don’t talk about it, but you being alone for so long...I’ve hated it. If you’re happy, the details don’t matter. You know that, right?”

“I know.” He smiled, helpless not to. “But I haven’t been alone. Not since the day you were born.”

She rolled her eyes, but her smile was bright and sincere. “Go to work, you sap.”

 

* * *

 

He dialed Barry from the parking lot of the newspaper. “Tell her.”

Barry’s answering hitch of breath told Joe it was the right call. Barry didn’t even ask what he meant, it was so near the surface for both of them that it wasn’t a question.

It felt huge, too huge, but not as huge as his little girl’s unconditional wish for his happiness. No secrets could withstand that. Joe would keep Cisco to himself for a little while longer, but she deserved more truth than she was being given.

“Tell her,” he said again into Barry’s shocked silence. “But keep her as safe as you can. Promise me.”

“You know I will. Joe…”

Joe smiled faintly at the relief in his voice. Iris was everything to Joe, the single most important part of his life. But Barry, he was such a close second that sometimes it was hard to separate them. “She’s at work. I’ll tell the captain you’re going to be late.”

Barry hung up fast, and Joe didn’t doubt that if he stayed parked there long enough he’d see a rush of lightning approaching. But he didn’t wait. He drove off, and he wondered as he went why if he was so scared about this could he not stop smiling.

 

* * *

 

 

****  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where the plot kicks in and things get ugly.

* * *

 

“Hey, Joe, it’s your partner. I was hoping to catch you but since you’ve apparently already left for the day I just figured I’d leave a message to say see you tomorrow.”

Joe blinked up about halfway through that, into the half-smile of his partner’s face as he went on. He flushed instantly, sitting back and pushing the report he’d been staring at for ten minutes away. “I was that gone, huh?”

Eddie smiled easily. “Wherever you went, you were not here. That might be the first time I’ve ever seen you totally stuck in your own head. Everything okay?”

Joe sighed, but smiled despite himself. “Everything’s good. Really good.”

Eddie studied him, but shrugged and moved around to his own desk. “Iris was saying…”

Joe hesitated, but the usual pang of annoyed tension failed to materialize. “What?”

“Last night, after dinner. She said you seem different. I just chalked it up to her normal paranoia about you, but she was onto something.”

“Iris is paranoid about me?”

“Yeah, you know - that you’re lonely and skipping meals and working too much and never sleeping without her there to tuck you in. She’s always asking me to make sure your clothes aren’t getting too loose or to take you out for healthy lunches since it’s the one meal of the day she can have input into through me.”

Joe laughed. “She still sees me at least once most days, what does she think’s gonna happen?”

“Got me. I never worry about my folks like that. But then I make it a point to avoid my folks unless the obligation’s just too much to ignore. Christmas, birthdays, that kind of thing.”

Joe sent him a look, but didn’t say anything. Their approaches to family were very different, but Joe knew Eddie had reason to avoid his parents, and not every family was as close as the Wests to begin with. It was a shame. If Joe hadn’t lost his own parents in a car accident when he was in college he’d probably be worse than Iris about them day to day.

Eddie returned his look, reading his thoughts easily enough, probably. Despite the strain that was sometimes between them - all involving Iris, of course - they’d been partners for more than a year. They knew each other.

He hesitated, figuring he ought to at least tell Eddie as much as he’d told Iris. Eddie was a good partner. He’d proven himself back when Joe was still lost about Chyre and angry about Iris’s lovelife and trying his damndest to keep Eddie at arm’s length.

He glanced around the squad floor to make sure nobody was drifting too near or paying too much attention.

When he looked back Eddie was already leaning forward, interest in his face. “Something is going on.”

This wasn’t Iris, this wasn’t someone he needed to ease into the idea because her opinion was so incredibly important. This was stage one of Singh’s warnings about what might happen to him if the job found out he was seeing a man.

This was also a man who qualified as a friend, an adult who was removed from the situation and would maybe see Joe and Cisco for the impossible situation that they were.

He cleared his throat, and scratched at his goatee absently. “Something happened this weekend. Something...god, probably something I shouldn’t have let happen.”

Eddie’s eyebrows rose in interest. “We talking about the kind of ‘something’ I think we are?”

Joe resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, and that’s all the detail you get.”

Eddie grinned, studying Joe, then suddenly he sat back and sucked in a breath. His grin vanished. “Wait a minute.”

Joe raised his eyebrows.

Eddie peered at him. His mouth angled downward, and he suddenly stood up. “Come here.”

Joe watched him stalk towards the doors leading out to the station lobby, and he felt a moment’s bemusement. But he stood and he followed, curious about what conclusions Eddie had leaped to from just those few words.

Eddie actually headed right for the same dark corner opposite the stairs that Singh had pulled him into the other day. He looked much less confused, though, and much more unhappy. “Okay, look,” he said as soon as Joe was close enough. “Your life’s not my business, I get that. We’re not _friends_.”

“Hey.” Joe objected to that instantly. “You know why I was talking that line back then.”

Eddie scowled, but waved a hand. “Fine, fine, we’re friends. Still, we stay out of each other’s business for the most part. But.”

“But?”

Eddie looked past Joe at the lobby beyond them, and lowered his voice a little. “I _like_ Cisco, okay?”

Damn it. Joe felt the heat rising to his face instantly, and was glad blushes didn’t show on his skin. “What--”

“He’s a good guy. He’s smart, he’s interesting. And he’s been _good_ for you. Have you lost your mind?”

Joe’s mouth opened, then shut again.

Eddie’s scowl deepened, as if he took Joe’s silence as confirmation. “I don’t know exactly what happened this weekend that you shouldn’t have let happen, but if it seriously involved cheating on Cisco then I am not good with it. I really thought you were better than that.”

Joe held up a hand, needing a moment. “What...you thought...you thought Cisco and me were a thing?”

Eddie blinked. “He...he brought you lunch.”  

Joe let out a breath, torn between feeling amused and annoyed. “Since when has that been code for anything? First Singh, now you, jesus. I’ve been a cop twenty years, I never got the memo that ‘lunch’ meant ‘relationship’. Does every delivery boy who shows up here get rumors started about his love life?”

“Knowing these guys? Probably.” Eddie’s cheeks started spreading with pink. “So, wait, you’re not…?”

Joe threw a hand in the air, coming down on the annoyed end of the coin. “No! Well. I mean. When he brought me lunch, it was lunch, that was it.”

“Really?” Eddie seemed truly surprised. “I just figured you weren’t talking about it because you and me have this giant barrier between personal and professional.”  
“And that’s still in place,” Joe said fast. “At least where my daughter is concerned.”

“Fine, fair enough. Still. When I saw how you two looked at each other, it seemed pretty clear.”

Joe had no retort for that. He felt his annoyance drain like someone had pulled a stopper out, and the amusement that was leftover made his confession a little easier. “You were wrong. That day.”

“That day.” Eddie studied him, and understanding made his mouth form an o. “And this weekend you went out of town. And something happened.”

Joe smiled crookedly. “Same page at last.”

Eddie took that all in and visibly rearranged his thoughts about this whole conversation. “Huh.”

Joe blinked. “Wait, you thought Cisco and I were something for at least a few days. What did you tell Iris?”

Eddie seemed genuinely surprised by that. “Nothing. I report your dietary habits, that’s all she gets from me. Not my place to talk about more.”

Joe nodded, relaxing. “Thanks for that. I told her I’m seeing someone, but that’s…”

“She won’t care. You know that. I mean not about who it is.” Eddie’s brow furrowed. “But you said whatever happened between you guys maybe shouldn’t have happened.”

“He’s younger than Iris. He’s even younger than Barry.”

Eddie waited. “But. He’s not your kid, Joe.”

“Easy as that, huh?”

“Well. I wouldn’t say that if he was a teenager, or if I thought you were the kind of man who might search out younger people with bad intentions. But I know you. And from what I’ve seen of him, he’s pretty sure of himself.”

Joe nodded, though there were a lot of areas where Cisco wasn’t so sure of himself. He did know who he was, though, and that was one of the hardest things to learn, being so young. Cisco was sure of himself as himself. He had a strong sense of identity. It was one of the things Joe respected most about him, this nerdy young guy raving about science and Star Wars and Bootsy Collins, with his Brazilian funk and Peruvian paella and real, sincere love of all shades of brown.

His insecurities mostly seemed to be in how he shared those things with the world. Or maybe just with the person he was interested in. But then Joe suspected that there was something behind that.

“Hey,” Eddie shrugged, smiling again finally. “For the record, after that lunch I wasn’t really all that surprised by what I thought I saw. I think you’re bothering yourself about this more than it’s gonna bother most anyone else.”

“No surprise at all?” Joe returned the smile faintly. He hadn’t stopped feeling surprised at himself yet.

“I just liked they way you smiled when he was there. It was good to see that.”

Joe grinned, a little touched by that. Maybe more than a little.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he held up a hand as he dug it out. He smiled uncontrollably at Cisco’s name on the screen, and half turned away from Eddie as he answered. “Cisco. Hey.”

“Okay, this is stupid, I know it’s stupid, but you made me promise I’d call you next time, and...this is me, calling you.”

Joe blinked. “Next time…” He frowned. “You spotted him again.”

“It’s not him, Joe. It really...it can’t be. But it’s not-him like every time I step outside lately and it’s starting to freak me out.”

Joe forgot about Eddie. He dug into his pocket for his keys. “Where are you?”

“I’m fine. I’m at the bus stop. My car gave out, I’ve been at the shop all morning, but I’ve got to get to work. I’m fine, really.”

“What bus stop?”

“Joe.”

“Do I sound like this is up for debate?”

There was a pause. “I’m across the street from Jitters.”

“Good, go have some coffee and wait for me. Order me a double something.” He turned to Eddie.

Eddie was frowning after hearing Joe’s end. “You need me?”

Joe hesitated, but shook his head. Whoever this asshole was Joe wasn’t scared he’d make an open play just yet. “But I need to--”

“I’ll cover you with Singh, just call if you need me.”

“Thanks.” Joe met his eyes. “Really, Eddie. For all this.”

Eddie smiled faintly, but nudged him towards the door. “Go.”

Joe headed for the door, but turned suddenly. He brought the phone back to his mouth. “Which shop is your car at?” When Cisco told him he waved Eddie over. “Ray’s Repair on 17th. You think you can go double check nobody’s been messing with his car?”

“Absolutely.” Eddie headed back into the squad room instantly.

In his ear Cisco laughed, but it was unsteady. “Such a cop.”

“You know it.” Joe pushed out the door into the sunshine and headed for his car.

 

* * *

 

He expected Cisco to greet him with a smile and at least try to play things off the way he had been on the phone. He was wrong. There was nothing light in Cisco’s face when he looked up from the table in the middle of the floor and saw Joe coming.

Instead he held out his phone. “It’s him.”

Joe took it and saw a text on the screen: _¿Cuánto me extrañas, Cisquito?_

He frowned back at Cisco.

“It’s him. It’s actually him, I don’t…” Cisco reached to take his phone back. His hand was shaking.

Joe slid into the chair across from him, ignoring the coffee waiting for him. “Alright, now’s the time to talk.”

“Hartley Rathaway.” The name came out in a rush of breath, like Cisco either couldn’t wait to get it out or had to force it before he stopped himself entirely.

Joe frowned. “I know that name.”

“He was...Barry had to…” Cisco stared at the screen of his phone.

Joe shook his head, but the memory hit him a moment later. A face on the monitors at S.T.A.R., and the crew at the lab telling he and Barry about an old coworker of theirs. Someone who they seemed to pretty much despise.

Rathaway.

He sat up, alarm making his spine stiffen. “He went after his family. He tried to kill people.”

“Didn’t succeed, for whatever that’s worth. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t want to, he just wanted our attention. Barry’s, anyway.”

“That’s not the point. He’s a meta.”

“No. He’s not. He’s a normal guy, I promise. He just has a lot of fancy toys.” Cisco set his phone down with the screen facing downward.

“Either way, he’s dangerous.”

Cisco didn’t argue that. In fact, his silence was particularly meaningful. “I just can’t believe he’d risk getting caught like this. Not because of me.”

Joe studied him, his downturned face and slumped shoulders. He should have never ignored this situation, not since that first day at the record store. He knew it was bothering Cisco, he knew there was something ugly there. He shouldn’t have left Cisco alone with it.

He stood up. “Come on.”

Cisco moved after him without a word, leaving their drinks behind silently.

Damn it. Joe led the way out to his car, peering around with sharp eyes as they went. Hartley Rathaway. Young white guy, dark hair, glasses. The same guy he spotted on the sidewalk the other day, he just didn’t associate him with that face on the screen weeks ago.

Damn it, damn it.

He got in the car, and pulled them onto the road fast once Cisco was in. If Rathaway was around somewhere, he didn’t want to make it easy for him to follow. He got them onto the nearest on-ramp to 70, even though it led further from the station and the lab. A couple of exits down should give them a little breathing room, anyway.

Cisco was silent as they drove, though his attention stirred when they got on the highway. He looked over at Joe, but that gray shock still had its grip on him and he stayed quiet.

Joe got them parked at a gas station off the next exit. He turned the car off, unfastened his seat belt and twisted in his seat. “Okay.”

“It’s a long story.”

“You never mentioned you two had that kind of history. At least not to me.”

“Not to anyone. Nobody knows, not even Caitlin. And I tell her everything. She’s my best friend.” Cisco looked over, smiling thinly. “At first he said it was more fun that way. The secrecy, you know. By the end he was saying...I mean, it wasn’t even that long, really. Like two months. Nothing, blink of an eye.”

“What was he saying?”

Cisco sighed. “That he just didn’t want anyone to know. Because…” He shrugged, a heavy heave of shoulders.

“Let me guess. Because people would judge you both. Because it was nobody’s business. Because you couldn’t trust anyone but him. Or, if he’s really the bastard I’m starting to think he was, because he himself was embarrassed about it. Because he could do better.”

Cisco’s eyes shot up at that.

Joe frowned. “I knew it just hearing you talk about him. Typical smug abusive piece of shit.”

Wide brown eyes blinked in surprise. “He wasn’t abusive.”

“Cisco.”

“Really. He wasn’t anything. I mean a person’s probably got to have some kind of emotions to become abusive, right? And he...didn’t.” He dropped his head back against the seat and scrubbed his face like he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. “I was on his team, working on the last projects to get the accelerator up and running. We didn’t even like each other. But one day he cornered me and asked my opinion about some issue that was slowing things down, and he actually listened, and. We worked it out together, and he said I was obviously the only person around with any sense.”

Joe nodded. He knew the way the story was going to go. He doubted Cisco had any idea how obvious it was, how the patterns went with assholes like Rathaway.

“It was stupid. He said I was the only person he could talk to, and he did. He told me things, about his family and his past, getting kicked out of his home, fending for himself. He said he could trust me, and it was like a snap of the fingers and suddenly we were spending the night together.”

Joe could guess at a lot of unspoken details. The way Hartley turned his sob stories into pity from Cisco and then bent that to get what he wanted from him. The way he used his own distrust of people to make sure Cisco kept his mouth shut, which would have alienated Cisco from any other friends he was making at that lab.

Cisco jumped past all that. “I mean. It’s so frigging stupid. Three months, maybe, at the most, and then he was too bored with me to keep it going. That’s what he said. And that was it. We kept working together and arguing over every last thing for the two weeks or so before he took off, and he never gave any kind of indication…”

“You never heard from him?”

“I...got hang-up calls now and then, but I only ever half-suspected it might be him. He hated me by the end, Joe, seriously. And I was messed up, but I hated him right back.”

“Messed up.”

“Seriously. Whatever it was he wanted, I was crap at giving it to him. He wanted me think I was tying my shoes wrong near the end there, and sometimes…” He smiled weakly. “Sometimes I do have trouble thinking other people want to hear me talk.” He held up a hand before Joe could respond. “I know, like in an intellectual sense, that he’s just a douchebag who wants to be with some wadded up spineless person who will make him their whole world. But I was bad at being that. Even at my lowest with him I was still pretty damned centered about myself. I knew I was fucking up with him, but I never let him convince me that that made me a fuck-up as a person, you know? So. It’s weird. Sometimes I still have his voice in my head. I know he had an effect. But not enough of one to satisfy him.”

“Cisco.” Joe heaved out a breath.

“Hey. Look, it’s not...it never got all that bad. Really. I wouldn’t have let it. I was young and stupid, and he caught me when I was really unsure about a lot of things. But that’s it. When he insulted me I fought right back, every time. And after he left I barely thought about him, until he popped back up with his fancy toys trying to get to Wells.”

“So what is this? What’s with that text?”

“I don’t know! I can’t figure it out. If you asked me yesterday, or even when I called you before the text popped up, I would’ve said he felt the same about me that I do about him. Nothing but resentment. And maybe that’s what it is. Maybe he’s really just trying to freak me out because I got the better of him once or twice before he got away.”

“No. Like you said, he’s risking himself by doing this.” Joe frowned. “How long has this been going on? How long have you been spotting someone who looks like him?”

Cisco hesitated. He looked out the windshield at the slow bustle of the gas station they were parked beside. “I guess the whole time, I mean the weeks since he got away from STAR, but only now and then. I figured I was paranoid because he got away and was out there somewhere. It only started to get really distracting the last couple of weeks.”

“So since you and me started hanging out.”

Cisco blinked, and looked back at Joe.

Joe sighed. “You told me over dinner at my place that you had a rough patch and hadn’t got back on the horse. Does that mean between him and me you haven’t gone out with anybody?”

“Yeah. But. You and me weren’t going out until this weekend.”

Joe snorted faintly. “That doesn’t seem to be what it looked like from the outside.” He summed up his talks with Singh after that first lunch, and Eddie just a short time ago.

Cisco’s mouth turned up at the corners. “That’s so cool. Eddie totally had my back.”

Joe returned the smile after a moment. “Glad you’re pleased by that.” Joe was starting to think that if he wanted to keep all this from Iris and Barry until he was ready, it meant he’d have to make sure he spent no time in the same room as Cisco with either of them around. Because apparently they’d been obvious before they ever got together.

He sighed after a moment, turning the key to start the car again. “Okay, I’m gonna take you to work. You should tell them about Rathaway.”

Cisco’s smile vanished, but he nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“What does that text mean, anyway? The Spanish?”

He rolled his eyes. “‘How much do you miss me?’ He always was a cocky little twerp. I’m debating sending an answer.”

“Yeah, I’d advise against it.” Joe glanced over, car still in park. “What would you say?”

“I dunno. I’ve been trying to think of a comparison, something I’ve been as happy to say goodbye to as I am to be rid of him. Something scathing yet true.” Cisco reached over and nudged at Joe’s arm. “Safe to say I don’t miss him at all. Especially lately.”

“Something tells me that answer wouldn’t make him leave you…” Joe glanced over, and his words trailed off when he saw the smile on Cisco’s face. For a moment at least the tension had drained out of him, and he was nothing but warm as he looked at Joe.

Joe leaned over, unable to resist the impulse, and kissed him. He kept it quick, though the way Cisco leaned right in and hummed happily against his mouth made him want to linger.

He drew back and watched the light in the smile that painted itself across Cisco’s face as he sat back again. It took some focus to face forward, to buckle his seatbelt and put the car into gear, but even then he hesitated and kept his foot on the brake.

“What are you doing tonight?”

Cisco laughed. “No plans outside monitoring police bands and interrupting Barry’s life if he’s needed. My typical evening.”

“How about the city takes care of itself for a night and we have some dinner?”

Cisco’s beaming smile was answer enough.

 

* * *

 

When Joe got back to the station Eddie hadn’t made it back, and there were no messages, so he headed upstairs to the CSI lab.

Barry was hard at work, bent over his computer monitor making notes about some chart on screen that looked like DNA results. Maybe. Joe usually waited for translations on things like that.

“Hey.”

Barry looked back over his shoulder at him, and he straightened instantly with a huge smile stretching across his face. “Hey!”

Joe blinked at that smile, but returned it crookedly. “I take it the talk with Iris went well?”

“Oh, no. Not at all. No, she’s pissed.” Barry’s grin didn’t fade. “She’s really seriously pissed, at both of us.”

Yeah, that sounded about right. “Usually you’re not so happy to have her mad at you.”

Barry shrugged. “She’s mad about the right thing, finally.”

“I guess that’s something.” Joe sighed. He’d have to call her. And then when she didn’t answer his phone, the way she didn’t when she was really mad, he’d probably have to go find her at Eddie’s after work.

He didn’t think she would see this as unforgivable, but Joe knew Iris: she would read things into it. She would think they didn’t trust her, or didn’t think she could handle it. And at least for Joe the reverse was true. He trusted her entirely, and he knew how strong she was. That was just the problem. If she had known from the start that Barry was The Flash she would have been at every crime scene, every incident, right in the front row and pushing to get involved because that was her best friend fighting some superpowered bad guy.

Every fight Barry had ever been in in his life, Iris was right there. Either getting into the middle of it or hunting down his attackers once she found out about it. And in this situation, that just wouldn’t work. She would be the only normal one surrounded by metahumans, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying.

Iris was too strong. Joe wasn’t sure how to face that. That right there was at the heart of this being kept secret from her for so long.

He wanted to make sure she understood that. Maybe if nothing else some guilt about her father’s ongoing fears would keep her a little safer than she would be otherwise.

Cat was out of the bag now, so all he could do was hope. It wasn’t a very nice feeling.

Still, looking at Barry’s wide grin was enough to make him feel a little better about the situation. Nobody worried about Iris as much as Joe did, but Barry Allen was a close second. If he felt good about this, maybe that meant something.

“Hey!” Barry had half turned back to his work before suddenly turning back to Joe. “Before I had a chance to spill to her she mentioned you. She said you’re dating somebody?”

Joe nodded, surprised but...what the hell, that was the other reason he’d come by the CSI lab. “It’s new. We’re going out tonight, actually.”

“Uh huh.” Barry studied him, eyebrows hiked up. “She said you were being mysterious about it.”

“Hey, it’s my first time in...a while. Let me have my fun.”

“A while?” Barry smirked at him.

Joe leaned over and punched him in the arm, light. “Go easy on me, kid. Strange enough getting back into the game like this.”

“No, hey, I think it’s great. And Iris is ready to throw a party over it. _Was_ ready, anyway, before…”

“Yeah.” Joe heaved a sigh and sat down on the edge of his desk as Barry slid back into his chair to study whatever results were on his screen. “She’ll come around. We were worried about her. Can’t hate your dad for the rest of his life just for being worried about you, right?”

“You should talk to her about it pretty fast, that’s all I’m gonna say.”

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll give her a day or two first. Let her process.”

“Might not be a bad id--”

“Joe? Hey, Barry. Might have something for you.”

They looked over to see Eddie coming in, jacket still on, frown on his face.

Joe remembered where Eddie had been and stood up instantly. “Hey, partner. What’d you find out on that case?”

Eddie gave him a fish-eyed look, but glanced at Barry and seemed to understand. “I went to that garage. The, uh, the victim’s car was still being looked at, took them a while to get into it enough to find the problem. But I brought a sample back with me.” He pulled a dirty little vial out of his pocket filled with something black.

Barry took it instantly, tilting out of his chair to pluck it from Eddie’s hands. Anything in vials or evidence bags he was drawn to like a moth to light. He tilted it back and forth, but the contents didn’t move.

Joe and Barry both looked back to Eddie for more.

Eddie nodded at the vial. “That’s oil from the car. The mechanic said he’d never seen anything like it. There’s a few compounds people can add to oil tanks to sabotage cars, usually just pretty malicious pranks, and he says he’s seen them all one time or another. But whatever this is turned the oil viscous slowly enough that it spread first. Said it must have taken days, and the car would have stayed drivable, with some issues, until this stuff had infested every part of the engine. And where it started hardening, it isn’t coming off. The engine’s a complete write-off.”

“And no way for it to happen naturally?”

“Not that he’s ever seen.”

Joe frowned. “So that’s what he thinks this was? A prank?”

“It was sabotage, though it was designed to do just what it did, affect the engine slowly and then stop it dead and for good. No explosions, no fiery accidents. Just slow stop. So maybe an expensive prank, maybe worse. Whatever it is, he hasn’t seen it before. I told him he’d let him know if we could figure out what kind of additive did this.” Eddie nodded at Barry. “That’s all you.”

“Yeah, I’m on it.” Barry studied the vial in interest. “What case is this for? You got chain of evidence forms for this?”

Eddie looked at Joe.

Joe cleared his throat and stood up. “Yeah, I’ll bring everything up later. Thanks, Bar.”

“Sure.” Barry took the oil to one of his machines, not giving the matter another thought. “See you guys.”

Joe waited until they were out of the lab and the door was shut to address the look Eddie was giving him. “I'm building up to it, okay? I told him I’m dating someone.”

Eddie smiled faintly, moving with him down the stairs. “That’s not what I was gonna say. Whoever it was who did that to Cisco’s car either wanted to cost him a lot of money or wanted to hurt him and just didn’t get the right results.”

“Yeah.” Joe thought about Rathaway’s face on the screen at STAR, the annoyed way everybody spoke about him. Genius, Wells had said. Cisco and Caitlin had rarely ever said a bad word about anyone, but Harrison Wells was the only one with any admiration for their ex-coworker. Joe should have realized that said something ominous about Rathaway.

Eddie was waiting for more, so Joe went ahead and gave it to him. There were only so many secrets a man could hold onto at one time. “He’s got himself a stalker of an ex.”

“That’s...not good. That can escalate fast, Joe. I’ve seen it before.”

“So have I. He thought it was relatively harmless, until today. The car was just a lucky guess, it’s been bothering him for a while.”

“Right, well. What now?”

It bothered Joe that he didn’t have an instant answer for that.

 

* * *

 

“Hi, Joe. “

He looked up from his phone in surprise, not expecting to see anyone in the front part of STAR. Normally he had to make his way all the way through down to that cortext before seeing signs of life.

From the way Caitlin stood there, though, it seemed like she’d known he was coming and came up specifically.

Joe’s eyebrows rose at that, the stance and the way her arms were folded across her chest. “Hello, Caitlin,” he said slowly.

Caitlin Snow could look stern like a pro. He’d seen her drop her guard a few times since they first met, but more often she was inscrutable to him. He didn’t distrust her, he didn’t regard her as suspicious the way he regarded Wells. But the reason Cisco was the only person in that lab that he fully trusted was that Cisco was the only one he could read. Caitlin kept a lot of things close to the chest.

Still, he smiled after a moment, because he had a feeling he knew what this was. “Am I being barred?”

She frowned. “Are you here about Hartley?”

So Cisco told them. Good. If STAR was on the case he’d be way easier to track down. But Joe answered honestly. “I’m here for Cisco. His car’s…”

“He told me.” She hesitated, looking a little uncertain in her sternness. “I mean, he told me about the car. But also. He _told_ me.”

“Ahh.” Joe couldn’t help glancing back behind her, but the corridor was curved and he couldn’t see that far down. “Just you?”

“For now.” She smiled faintly. “He tells me everything. Well. Mostly. He didn’t tell me about Hartley until now, but. Most everything.”

“You’re his best friend,” Joe answered easily. “He thinks the world of you.”

“It’s mutual.” Her sternness came right back, wiping away her smile.

“Good.” Joe studied her, trying not to smile. “So are you going to ask me my intentions?”

She hesitated, blinking those wide deer eyes that were the only things that kept her from coming across as genuinely intimidating. “He told me I wasn’t allowed to ask. But that doesn’t mean you can’t tell me anyway.”

Joe chuckled. He nodded down the corridor, since they were still a good distance from the cortex. “Walk with me.”

She turned when he reached her and kept up with his long, slow strides easily. “It’s not that I suddenly think you’re a bad person or anything,” she said as they went. “But. This is. New? And honestly I’m not sure what my role here should be.”

“It’s fine,” Joe answered easily. “I suppose there’s just no easy answer. I haven’t had time to build up any real intentions. All I can tell you is that he’s the first person I’ve seen more than once in...at least ten years. And there’s a lot of common sense arguments in my head about why the idea of him and me is completely crazy, but...I like him. I really like him.”

She studied his profile until he looked back at her and met her eyes.

And then she shrugged. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I mean. I’m a doctor, living a life full of crime and mystery and metahumans, so if I do need to kill you there are so many ways to do it I feel like I don’t even need to give details.”

He blinked.

She smiled. “But you’re a good man, so I’ll give you a chance first. Just know...short of Ronnie Cisco is the most important person in my life. And he deserves so much more than he’s gotten so far.”

“You and me are in perfect agreement there.”

She steered him down a side corridor before they could get to the cortex. STAR was a huge, complex facility that Joe was well aware of knowing way too little about. He knew the route from the front doors to the cortex, and the cortex down to the pipeline, and aside from that the place was a maze.

She leaned in and spoke more softly as they walked towards an open set of double doors. “There’s one good reason why I’m feeling pretty okay about all this.”

“What’s that?”

They moved through the doors and Joe blinked at the wide set-up inside, some massive collection of gears and engine and glass lenses and whatnot that he wasn’t even about to try to decipher on his own.

From the middle of the tech popped a pair of goggle-covered eyes. “Hey!” Cisco pushed the goggles up off his face and set down some kind of tool, moving around to free himself from the tech beast with a glowing grin on his face.

Caitlin spoke in a murmur. “And there’s your answer.”

Joe returned the grin helpessly, trying not to flush too hot at her words. He looked over with a smile, and she returned it and lay a hand on his arm for a meaningful moment.

“Uh oh.” Cisco stripped off a pair of gloves as he approached, dropping them on a steel countertop. “Caitlin. You weren’t just doing things I asked you not to do, were you?”

Caitlin smiled sweetly. “The word of our agreement is intact.”

He eyed her, but grinned at Joe. “Sorry.”

“No you’re not.” He chuckled and only hesitated a moment before he realized he had no reason to hesitate. He held out an arm, and Cisco slid right in and hugged him hello, arms latching around his waist loosely.

“Is it dinnertime already?” Cisco asked Joe’s shirt.

“Not quite.” Joe drew back and studied him, his smile fading. “Your car.”

Cisco’s grin took a hit, but he swallowed and nodded. “Let me have it.”

“It’s trashed. The engine’s ruined. And it was definitely deliberate.”

Caitlin hissed out a breath, and Joe glanced over at her. “That toad. That hateful little monster.”

Joe nodded his agreement. “You guys can keep an eye out here, right?”

“We’re trying a few things. Doctor Wells isn’t happy to hear he’s back. He wants to catch him this time.”

“If you do catch him, he comes with me,” Joe said firmly. He’d have to have that talk with Wells himself, he figured, but it was good to get a warning in. “Rathaway’s not a meta, he doesn’t belong here.”

“He’ll fight you on that,” Catilin answered, but she didn’t seem to be arguing. “Doctor Wells takes him very personally.”

“And if I find out Wells is holding non-meta humans here in his own personal prison from some kind of grudge, that’s the moment this place goes public.” Joe spoke firmly.

She met his eyes, but nodded once. Her voice dropped to whisper levels. “We’ve never been very happy about keeping them here anyway.”

Joe’s eyes went back to Cisco. He was paler, no longer smiling, but he met Joe’s gaze and nodded. “It’s not the kind of responsibility either of us was looking for when we started here, I’ll say that much.”

Joe’s mind left the prison and the metas. They would handle Rathaway when they caught him, no use worrying about it before then. He studied Cisco. “You okay?”

Cisco smiled after a moment. “Well, I gotta get used to bus schedules again, but hey. I’ve got a hot date tonight, so who cares?”

Joe wasn’t satisfied with that by a long shot, he could see the trouble lurking in Cisco’s eyes. But he was in the middle of work with a good friend he no doubt didn’t want to worry standing right there, so Joe let him be.

“Definitely a hot date,” Caitlin answered, smiling at Joe as if their earlier talk never happened. “And it’s getting kinda late, do you want to wrap up your tinkering?”

He made a face at her. “‘Tinkering.’ The eternal damning cry heard by all engineers everywhere.” He smiled at Joe, though, and tugged off his safety glasses. “Lemme just clean up a little bit here and I’ll be good to go.”

* * *

 

Joe wasn’t sure what he was expecting from Cisco’s apartment, but what he got surprised him.

It was neat, almost minimal, at least the living room they walked into was. There were some framed movie posters on the walls, but the furniture was simple and adult; a little mismatched but not in a bad way.

There was a bookshelf against the back wall with a few action figures standing among the books, but that was the only real evidence of Cisco’s nerd fetishes in sight.

The focus in the living room was on a huge entertainment center underneath a wide flat screen TV. The entertainment center was crammed with DVDs and CDs, and on top were a few devices Joe didn’t recognize. A DVD player sat among them, and the others he figured were game consoles or something.

It was a pretty good size, the living room and the connected kitchen separated by a long counter. The kitchen was less neat, some dishes in the sink, a couple of bags on the counter that looked like groceries he’d started unpacking and then forgot about entirely. The floors outside the kitchen were a plain light grey carpet.

It was all pretty simple, and...calm, compared to Joe’s expectations. In a way it was a relief not to walk into a place that looked like a ten-year-old’s playroom. But in a way it was disappointing.

Cisco headed right for the kitchen as they came in, and when he came back out, drinks in hand, he followed Joe’s gaze around the place. “Boring, right? I warned you at dinner.”

“I took that as sarcasm.” Joe accepted the beer with a smile. “It’s not very you.”

“It serves its purpose. I don’t really spend time out here unless there are guests or I’m watching a movie or something, so. Come on, I’ll give you the tour.”

Cisco set his drink on the counter and headed down a short hallway. Every door was at least cracked open, and as he pushed the first one open wider a dark grey blur shot out and snaked between his feet right into another door.

Cisco grinned back at Joe. “That’s Nut. You won’t meet her again, probably. She doesn’t like things.”

“Nut. Got it.” Joe peered through the doorway at a small bare-walled bedroom. Not Cisco’s, he could tell. This was unused and sparse.

“Guest room. Caitlin's the only person who'd ever used it. Hell if I know why I got a three bedroom, because it’s way too much space, but whatever.” Cisco pointed out the bathroom, and gestured at the back door that led to his bedroom. “And here’s what you expected when you walked in,” he said as he nodded for Joe to check out the last door.

Joe cracked the door open in interest and huffed a laugh at what he found. “Yeah, that’s pretty accurate.”

It was the third bedroom, he was assuming, but Cisco had converted it into a...well, a space. There was a desktop with a couple of large monitors and and a keyboard, and just about every other spot in the room was occupied. Toys, posters, an entire collection of bright colored nerf guns hung on the wall like some prized rifle collection. A table along the back wall that had a huge toolbox and little bits of wires and nuts and bolts and sketches and diagrams, some sort of projects Joe probably wouldn’t have understood if Cisco took the time to explain them.

He reached out absently and picked up a toy from the desk, peering at it. “Star Trek, right?”

“Hey! Good man. Yeah, it’s a phaser, watch where you aim it.” Cisco flashed a grin. “You won’t believe it but I actually wrote a paper once in college about the practicalities of energy-based portable weapons, which everyone was all impressed by but I was totally just trying my best to talk about Trek phasers without anyone catching on. I got bored a lot in college.” He shrugged. “Anyway, this is where I hang out mostly when I’m here. Not that that’s often these days.”

Joe set the phaser back down and looked around in approval. “I like it. This fits.”

Cisco grinned. “Hey, come on, I wanted to show you something.”

Joe looked back as Cisco headed back out to the living room. Nut the cat was tucked under the desk, staring at Joe in grim silence. Joe raised his eyebrows at the creature, but chuckled and followed Cisco.

By the time he reached the front room again, Cisco was shoving against the back of the small couch that seemed to divide the living room from the kitchen. He moved around it to the entertainment center and grabbed a remote. When he turned and saw Joe watching he grinned and nodded towards the door. “That switch on the wall, flip the one closest to the door, huh?”

Joe went along, amused, and Cisco aimed the remote up at nothing and hit some buttons.

The switch he flipped controlled the overhead lights, and just like that the room went dim and shadowed around them. There was light coming from a little side table and a golden glow coming through the blind-covered window in the kitchen, and the darkness in that living room was...well, kind of romantic.

Joe looked up when music started playing, and he only spotted the speakers in the corners of the ceiling from their shadows in this new dimness. He made a soft hum of approval when he recognized the tune. Ella again.

“She’s growing on me,” Cisco said at the same time. He approached Joe with a smile. “I mean she doesn’t have the same soul as Nina, but man. If angels sing up in heaven they can go ahead and sound just like this.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

Cisco hit a button on the remote and switched tracks, something fast and jazzy. “So. You dance.”

Joe smiled uncontrollably when he realized why Cisco pushed the couch out of the way, and set his beer down. “Tap in school,” he answered. “And nightclubs in the nineties.”

“Salsa,” Cisco replied, pulling off a complex-looking step-and-hip combo with impressive casualness. “One way my folks were total stereotypes, putting all us kids into salsa classes.”

Joe watched him move with undisguised interest. “I always wanted to learn swing.”

“Oh yeah? Hey, we should see if there are lessons around here anywhere, set that up. Date night. So old-school.”

“I’m good with that.” Joe chuckled as Cisco tossed the remote on the counter beside his beer. “This doesn’t count as date night?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess it does.” Cisco sidled up to Joe and slid an arm around his waist, swaying his hips in time with the music. Joe didn’t need any more incentive to get into the music, moving along with him as Ella scatted overhead.

Joe found himself smiling uncontrollably as they danced. It was such a simple thing, really, something he’d done years ago. But the last time he danced...well, actually, that was at the Bootsy concert with Cisco. Before that, though? It had been a while. He missed it. He missed sliding his hand around a partner’s waist and feeling them move with him, trying to anticipate their steps, stumbling and laughing when he got it wrong.

Every day with Cisco showed Joe that his life had lost a lot of things he never even realized were gone. Things like music, and dancing, and trading kisses while bent in uncomfortable positions in a car.

Joe had lost sight of the fact that he could be a good father, and a good cop, and also have his own life separate from those two things. That hadn’t been true years ago, when he divorced Jackie and was single again. Back then everything revolved around Iris, and it would for years afterward.

Maybe that was his mistake: not realizing when she and Barry were self-sufficient enough that Joe could actually try to reclaim some kind of life for himself that was actually about him.

When he told Cisco a couple weeks back that he didn’t feel like his life was lacking in any way, he’d been telling the truth. It was only coming to him now in bits and pieces that he’d been lacking something the entire time, just hadn’t realized it.

Something like this - this casual formless dancing and the warmth of beer and Cisco pressed close and the tug of anticipation about where this might lead - it wouldn’t have occurred to him to miss this the last decade or two. But now that he had it, he wanted it in his life. He wouldn’t let it go easily.

Grinning, feeling a little flushed and a lot happy, he grabbed Cisco’s wrist and spun him out. Sloppy, a little tuneless, but Cisco laughed and cha-cha’d his way back.

“Hey, you said you danced in clubs in the 90s, right?”

Joe cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah. Late eighties, too.”

“I’m trying to picture little Joey West rocking the Kid ‘n Play steps. Did you have a fade? Do you breakdance? I don’t know enough about 90s moves.”

Joe laughed. “Okay, first off, nobody has ever called me Joey. And that’s not an invitation to start.”

Cisco echoed the laugh, eyes gleaming in the dimness. “Doesn’t fit you anyway.” He drew back as the music faded, and reached over for Joe’s beer. He sipped, then handed it to Joe. “Paco,” he offered as a much slower song started in overhead. “That was my nickname as a kid. Except for one ridiculous phase when one of my teachers in elementary school tried to whiten up everyone’s names, and little Francisco Ramon became Frank for most of a year.”

Joe laughed at that, draining the bottle and setting it down. “Frank might be worse than Joey.”

“Agreed. Very Rat Pack, go us, but no. Did not work at all, but try to stop my brothers calling me that once they found out.” Cisco rolled his eyes, but slipped his arms around Joe and swayed as Ella sang overhead. “Is dancing like this way too cheesy for our first official date night?”

“Maybe. I’m trying not to judge.” Joe pulled him in close, though, smiling to himself. Cheesy didn’t seem like that bad a thing.

“Oh yeah, you don’t seem like you’re having any fun.” Cisco leaned in, head resting on Joe’s shoulder.

Joe’s eyes shut and he made a soft, contented sound. Cisco was warm against him, holding him like he didn’t want to let go, moving with the slow rhythm of the song until what they were doing wasn’t much more than swaying in place. And Ella sang, her voice surrounding them from those fancy speakers.

_He don’t love me like I love him_  
_No, nobody could_  
_I got it bad, and that ain’t good._

No, Joe had no intention of going without this again. Not now that he appreciated it. There was a luxury there, something indulgent and selfish and really nice. Just having someone who smiled to see Joe coming, who fit against him and danced like this. Who looked at Joe as a man first.

There were some things Joe still had to straighten out. Telling Iris and Barry. Dealing with Cisco’s dangerous ex. And then of course there was also the general whatever of life, the uncertainty of whether this thing would last or they’d get bored of each other and call it quits.

He couldn’t quite take that last worry seriously, though. Not when Cisco looked at him the way he did, like he couldn’t believe Joe was there with him. Not when Joe felt so incredibly peaceful holding him the way he was.

Cisco spoke against his chest quietly. “Don’t suppose you can stay over?”

“Tonight?” Joe’s arms tightened around him unconsciously. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good.”

Cisco drew back enough to look up at him, and he smiled after a moment. His eyes were dark, warm and inviting as always. He leaned up on his toes.

Joe met him in a kiss, and part of him ached at how nice it all was. The press of Cisco’s mouth against his seemed to cause this visceral reaction inside of Joe. This flush, this strange decadent feeling. Like luxury. Like he was spoiling himself having someone there that he could just lean over and kiss whenever he wanted to.

The music changed overhead, a familiar piano melody being played out.

_I want a little sugar in my bowl_  
_I want a little sweetness down in my soul_  
_I could stand some lovin', oh so bad_  
_I feel so funny, I feel so sad_

Joe pulled back and laughed when he recognized the tune. “Now that’s timing.”

Cisco was flushed dark, but he smiled like sunlight. “I didn’t even plan it. I just added some Nina into the mix for fairness.”

“Only right,” Joe agreed. And as Nina sang her aching need over their heads, he slipped a hand through Cisco’s hair and urged him close again.

He stopped hearing the song, stopped thinking about how nice this was, or how out of practice he was, or all the things that might eventually make it less than ideal. He couldn’t focus on anything but the slide of Cisco’s mouth against his, the warmth of breath on his cheek, the way Cisco’s hands slid up the front of his shirt and his fingers hooked into the fabric like he was fighting the urge to tear it off.

Joe made a sound against his mouth, tilting his head to kiss him deeper, to stroke his tongue over Cisco’s mouth and then inside when that mouth instantly parted for him. Cisco growled softly, lacing his hands behind Joe’s neck and pressing their bodies tight together.

His hand ran down Cisco’s side and up again, restless, enjoying the warmth of him and they way he was so utterly responsive. “Should we…?”

“Mm.” Cisco drew back, eyes opening after a moment reluctantly. “Bedroom.”

“Yeah.” Joe kept his arm wrapped around Cisco’s waist, ready to get them down that back hall without letting him go for a second. But a thought occurred to him and he drew back and fished his phone from his jacket. “Let me…”

Cisco nodded, stepping back like it physically pained him to go that far. He turned and looked around for the remote to the music overhead.

Joe called his second speed dial number and watched Cisco move around his space. The place wasn’t what he’d expected from his young lover, but at least Cisco seemed utterly comfortable there. And however plain it was, it was also a really relaxed kind of space.

“Hey, Joe! I thought you were on your mystery date? Must not be going well.”

Joe cleared his throat. “Um. Actually, just. Calling to tell you not to wait up. I won’t be home.”

“You won’t be...oh, Joe! Come on, you’re like my dad, I don’t want to know this kind of thing!” Barry laughed, still sounding like telling Iris his secret had lifted about a thousand pounds off his shoulders. “Hey, but...good job. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Sleep well, kid.” Joe hung up and stuck the phone in the pocket of his slacks. He slipped the jacket off and draped it over the back of the couch, and approached Cisco.

Cisco was messing with the music, skipping tracks, his back to Joe as he waited. Joe moved in, quiet, thinking suddenly about that one fantasy he’d had before their fateful road trip. The one he created with Sherry, that Cisco had invaded and stayed in ever since.

There was no mirror, but Joe moved in behind him and pressed against Cisco, lacing his arms around Cisco’s waist and pulling him back firmly. “Leave it on,” he said, bending his head to nuzzle his lips against the warm skin behind Cisco’s ear.

Cisco shivered and melted back against him, tossing the remote blindly away and tilting his head to the side. “Mm, Joe…”

Joe kept one hand flat against Cisco’s stomach and ran the other down his hip and thigh. “So I’m all yours for the night. What’d you have in mind?” He slid his hand back up Cisco’s leg, palm finding him hard in his jeans and cupping the denim approvingly.

Cisco let out a sound, soft and choked, and dropped his head back against Joe’s shoulder. “Fuck.” He reached back and grasped Joe’s slacks, arching back against him.

“Hmm?” Joe smiled against Cisco’s neck, thrilling unabashedly in the way Cisco responded to him.

“No, that’s…” Cisco’s breath hissed out as Joe stroked him through increasingly tight jeans. “That’s what I have in mind,” he said in a rush. “Fuck me.”

Joe’s body was all for that, instantly and wholeheartedly. His erection throbbed in response, and his arm tightened around Cisco’s waist. He let out an unsteady breath. “You sure?”

Cisco reached down and lay his hand over Joe’s. “Feel pretty sure, don’t I?”

Joe made a soft noise of agreement. Cisco felt sure, and ready, and unbelievable. He gave him a last squeeze, a last kiss to the neck, and turned him around in his arms. “Good, yeah. Let’s--” He cut himself off when he couldn’t resist leaning in and kissing him, open-mouthed and hungry.

Cisco responded just the same way, hot and eager. His hands slid to Joe’s ass, making Joe chuckle into the kiss.

“Christ. Okay….” Joe drew back and had to look away from Cisco’s damp mouth to keep some kind of control. “Bedroom.”

Cisco grabbed his hand and jerked him down the hallway fast. Joe grinned but it felt wild, uneven, like he was stalling against some huge, dangerous-feeling reaction to all this. He wanted Cisco, wanted to bury himself inside of him and fuck him until he passed out, and it was overwhelming. It made his hands shake, the sheer size of it.

They reached the bedroom, which Joe hadn’t gotten a look at before. He didn’t see much when Cisco turned on the light, just a bed and a desk and some things on the walls he couldn’t make his focus settle on enough to identify. He saw Cisco, that was all. He watched him move up to the bed and push at rumpled sheets and turn to face Joe with a smile that looked suddenly nervous.

Joe closed the distance between them instantly when he saw those nerves. He stroked a hand through Cisco’s hair, growing fond of the gesture pretty quickly. “Done this before?”

Cisco nodded, but it was hesitant. He nodded down at a small chest of drawers by the bed. “Top drawer, there’s…”

Joe didn’t move, studying him.

Cisco shrugged. “Wasn’t his favorite thing to do. Too messy. But I talked him into it a couple of times.”

Rathaway. Joe should’ve just let it go. But he bent and kissed Cisco until he felt him relaxing again, and when he drew back it was just far enough to breathe words against his lips. “If it’s not messy you’re not doing it right. And I don’t think there’s anything you could suggest that I wouldn’t want to do with you, baby. Twice a day at least.”

Cisco let out a puff of laughter, and wrapped his arms around Joe’s waist loosely. “What about you? Done this before?”

“It’s been a couple decades, and I wish that was an exaggeration.”

“I’ll go easy on you, then.”

“I hope not.” Joe kissed him, slow and deep, feeling the last of Cisco’s apprehensions melting out of him as their tongues stroked together. He had this urge, this real, deep, powerful urge, to give the man in his arms absolutely everything he could possibly ever want. And he wanted to make sure that by tomorrow morning there wasn’t a doubt left in Cisco’s mind with Hartley Rathaway’s name on it.

Tall order, probably, but Joe was ready to do his damndest to make it happen. He drew back, running the pad of his thumb along Cisco’s swollen lips. “Gorgeous,” he murmured.

Cisco flushed and his lips curved upward under Joe’s touch. “Look who’s talking.”

Joe smiled. It was always nice to hear, though just like their first night together he could read it all on Cisco’s face, in the heat of his gaze, the admiration in his eyes. Cisco only had to look at him a certain way and Joe’s ego swelled.

Cisco looked away after a moment, his cheeks stained pink, and he reached for the drawer he’d mentioned. He pulled out lube and condoms, setting the bottle and the packets on top of the dresser. “So how do you want…?”

Joe sighed, but reached around him and pushed the drawer shut. “First. Let’s learn from past mistakes and get those jeans off.”

Cisco muffled a laugh but reached for the button on his fly.

Joe tugged his arms down again. “Nope. Mine.”

Cisco’s grin faded and he let out a shaky breath. “Yeah, okay.”

Joe moved in and cupped the back of his neck, pulling him into a kiss. Their mouths moved together easily, finally starting to learn each other. Joe stroked down his hip and up his inseam, fingers dragging against his erection. He was glad the mention of Rathaway hadn’t affected him too much, since he had plans.

He dragged the kiss out until Cisco started getting impatient, nipping at his lip and shifting against him. And only then did Joe reach for his jeans and unfasten them, dragging the zipper down carefully against the erection pressing against it.

Cisco sighed against his mouth as he was freed of those jeans. Joe tugged them down past his hips and blinked for a moment when he reached for boxers and found only skin. He swallowed down an audible response to that discovery, and pulled back to steer Cisco back to the bed. “If I knew you weren’t wearing underwear this might’ve happened in the restaurant bathroom.”

Cisco hummed in interest. “Mental note made, future plans already shaping up.”

Joe groaned, but pushed him to sit on the edge of the bed. He reached for the jeans still clinging about mid-thigh, and as he pushed them down he got down to his knees on the carpet between Cisco’s legs.

Cisco’s grin vanished and he let out a breath. “Fuck.”

“Eventually.” Joe got the jeans tugged down past one ankle, then the other. He pushed up on his knees and slid his hands up Cisco’s thighs, smiling when Cisco’s legs shifted further apart. He reached for the hem of Cisco’s shirt and pulled it off him, tossing it to the side.

He reached for his own shirt, but Cisco reached out. “Mine.”

Joe looked up at him, but nodded and dropped his arms back to Cisco’s thighs.

Cisco unbuttoned his shirt, slow, his fingers unsteady. Joe let it fall from his shoulders to the floor and sighed when Cisco’s warm hands slipped up his chest in eager exploration. “I think you’d be a more effective cop if you went everywhere like this,” he said idly, hands tracing over black curls of hair peppered over Joe’s chest. “Very intimidating.”

Joe hummed in answer, savoring the look on Cisco’s face, feeling nothing but sexy being the recipient of that look. “Singh might not agree.”

“Singh’s fiance definitely wouldn’t.”

Joe leaned up high as he could until Cisco took the hint and bent to meet him in a kiss. Joe reached between them blindly and wrapped his hand around Cisco’s cock. Cisco gasped against his mouth, kissing him that much more eagerly.

Joe pulled back after a minute, mouth sliding down to his jaw, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses down his neck. “Close your eyes.”

Cisco swallowed audibly, but when Joe glanced upward his eyes were shut. Joe smiled at the trust in the unquestioning response. His free hand came up, thumb stroking over those full lips as he mouthed at Cisco’s neck. “You,” he said between kisses. “You are so fucking sexy like this. You know that?”

Cisco just breathed in, heavy and uneven. His eyes squeezed more tightly shut, his lips pressed a kiss to Joe’s thumb.

Joe squeezed his erection lightly. “So sexy, and all mine.”

“Joe…” Cisco’s voice was a rasp.

Joe hummed against his neck, and pulled back to catch his breath. He watched Cisco’s chest shift with his quickening breaths, watched the flush spread down his chest as Joe stroked his cock. Cisco kept his eyes closed, but it looked like it took some effort.

Joe rewarded him that. He shifted his hands to Cisco’s hips, licking his lips as he bent. When his mouth closed over the head of Cisco’s cock Cisco jumped in surprise, a gasp choking out of him. Joe kept hold of his hips, holding him steady as he sank down to take more of him in.

Cisco’s hands found his shoulders, gripping tightly. “Joe...fuck, oh god…”

Joe hummed softly, and felt the full-body twitch that caused. He stroked his tongue along the length of flesh in his mouth, exploring. This he’d done more recently than full on sex with a man, but ‘more recently’ still wasn’t all that recent, and he wanted to take his time and learn it again.

Cisco didn’t seem to mind the careful explorations, if his sharp breaths and grip of his fingers was any indication.

Joe pulled up again, working his tongue around the thick head of Cisco’s cock as he wrapped his hand around the base of him.

“Joe...Joe…” Cisco seemed stuck on his name, panting it and moaning it and shuddering the whole time like this was nothing he’d ever experienced before.

The taste was stronger than Joe remembered, but the sensations were stronger, too. He reached down to cup himself in his slacks, rock hard and aching from what he was doing to Cisco. He moaned around his mouthful, and Cisco cursed and tried to arch up into the feeling.

“Joe, fuck, god, wait a sec…” Cisco’s voice was half breath. “I’m gonna…”

Joe pulled off him with a deliberately loud slurp. “You’ll come again with me inside you, I promise.”

“Fuck.” Cisco’s eyes opened and he stared down at him, pupils wide and black, his expression awed. “Fuck,” he murmured, dropped his head back as Joe took him in his mouth again. His fingers were still tight on Joe’s shoulders, tight enough that Joe was pretty sure he’d have ten little bruises by morning. And that was pretty damned sexy in itself.

He’d forgotten. He’d been without for so long he’d forgotten the sheer thrill of making another person feel this good. A person he cared about, and knew, instead of just a date for the night that worked out pretty well. Someone he would wake up with in the morning, and call through the day. Someone who was his.

He stroked Cisco and worked his mouth over the head of his cock, and it didn’t take very long before Cisco was gripping him extra tight and trying to gasp out a warning. Joe had a moment’s debate with himself but decided fast that choking wouldn’t be the best way to keep the evening going, and he was just out of practice enough not to trust himself to swallow easily.

He pulled back, stroking Cisco until his whimpers went loud and harsh and broken. Joe watched his face, the way pleasure pinched at his expression until his mouth dropped open and his back arched, and he came.

Joe worked him through it, and leaned in when a few drops landed on Cisco’s thigh. He licked it off, humming thoughtfully at the taste of him. Strong, sharp, but he was instantly sorry he hadn’t risked it and taken in every drop.

Cisco’s head fell forward, his body shaking with his panting breaths. “Oh my god.” He pried his hands from Joe’s shoulders, wincing. “Oh, man. Oh shit, sorry, I think I drew blood.”

Joe was too busy hunting more traces of his orgasm to care. He licked a trail off his own arm, and swallowed a few drips from Cisco’s leg and his stomach.

Cisco’s hand found the back of his head, and stroked over his hair shakily. “Christ, Joe.”

“Mm.” Joe looked up with a smile, trying and failing not to feel completely smug. “Not bad for my first time in years.”

Cisco laughed, sharp. “If this is you rusty then you with some experience in might kill me.” He ran soothing fingers over the sharp aches his gripping hands had left on Joe’s shoulders. “I’d offer to return the favor, but…”

“No, we’ve got plans.” Joe pushed up off his knees, stretching his legs out with a twinge of discomfort. Bad knees weren’t something that troubled him, and Cisco’s carpet was nice and thick, but he was still going to think twice before he did things that way again.

Cisco studied him, his hungry interest in Joe’s body only slightly dulled from his orgasm. “We have plans.”

He reached for Joe’s slacks and worked them open, unfastening his belt and pushing it all down so Joe could step out of them. He ran his hands up over Joe’s thighs, fingers dipping under his boxers.

“Your body.” He let out a breath. “You’re like something out of magazines. I never would’ve guessed you were hiding all this under those suits.”

Joe shrugged, but pleasure made his face heat. “Gotta stay in shape on the job.”

Cisco looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “I’ve met some of those cops you work with.”

Joe laughed, sucking a breath through his teeth as Cisco pushed his boxers down past his erection. “Some of us take it more seriously than others.” He wasn’t in the shape he’d been in in his twenties, he’d gone a little softer, much less defined, but he accepted Cisco’s appreciation with pride.

Cisco moved back, scooting further up on the bed and dropping flat on his back with a sigh. “Okay, I feel so good right now.”

Joe moved up on the bed beside him, running a hand up his stomach to his chest deliberately. “Yes you do.”

Cisco laughed, but turned his head to look over at him. “You still want…?”

“Christ, yeah, I want.” Joe’s cock was all but throbbing its impatience, but he smoothed his hand over Cisco’s cheek and smiled easily. “I want,” he said, studying Cisco, “to take my time, to do this right. I’m not gonna let you feel any pain.”

Cisco let out a breath and reached up, stroking fingers idly up and down Joe’s arm. “If we do this…” He swallowed. “I’m just gonna be really into you. Fair warning.”

“Yeah?” Joe nodded. Neither of them were starry-eyed teenagers, as much as Cisco could do a great impression of one. They were both well aware that sex didn’t mean love, and that nothing would be different in the morning than it was right now because of what happened in that bed.

But Joe nodded all the same, because it felt right. It felt like this was a step. A big one. And he wanted it. He wanted Cisco to be really into him. He wanted to be really into Cisco.

“Warning understood.” Joe smiled, trying to remember Cisco’s words from before. “Future plans already being made.”

Cisco broke into a smile, wide and shadowless. He reached for Joe, pulling him down, and Joe went happily.

 

* * *

 

There was a moment, a shockingly clear and coherent moment, where Joe realized that he could absolutely fall in love with Cisco Ramon.

He was inside of him, covering him, with Cisco’s legs drawn up and spread wide on either side of him. They were both sweating, giving off tangible heat.

_“Se siente tan bien...Dios mio, Joe, me vuelves loco…_ ” Cisco’s words had drifted into Spanish some time ago, and his moans had died down to murmurs, thick and heavy as they passed through swollen lips.

Joe’s moans were louder than ever, growing hoarse.

He was taking his time, and it was driving them both crazy. He had opened him up slowly, finger by finger, overdoing it with the lube and peppering his body with kisses as they went, and his first push inside had been long, careful. Intense.

And he was still going slowly, even now that Cisco’s body was taking him so smoothly. But this was a selfish slowness. This was Joe feeling the tight grip of Cisco’s body around him, feeling the indescribably pleasure of fucking him, and wanting it to last as long as possible, until they were both dying to come.

He’d kissed tears off Cisco’s face, and licked salty sweat from his chest, and stroked him through a second orgasm that left him heavy-lidded and panting. And every slow roll of his hips, every thrust that buried his cock in that decadent tight heat, was making Joe’s eyes go distant and unfocused, and his body sing.

And he realized...this wasn’t because he was rusty. This wasn’t because he had known Cisco longer than he’d known his few one-night stands. This was just them. Them together, this was what it felt like. For Joe West to be with Cisco Ramon, this was what happened.

He knew, right then, sharp and clear and coherent among a thousand blurred-together pleasures: he wasn’t ready to talk about love quite yet, but it was going to happen. It was going to go that way, and Joe was going to do his best to keep up. He could see it, like the lightening of the sky before a sunrise. This was going to be love.

And then he was back being lost in the motion of his own hips and the way Cisco was pushing up to meet him, to pull him in deeper, and the moment passed.

But he didn’t forget it. When he came after what felt like hours, when Cisco passed out cold after a third weak orgasm, Joe wrapped his arms around the man beside him and pressed a damp kiss against his shoulder and he knew something had happened. Something real.

It was the best he’d felt in years. Decades. It was huge, and god help him, but he was ready.

 

* * *

 

Cisco was still out cold when the alarm on Joe’s phone went off.

Joe felt sore and heavy-limbed as his eyes shot open, and he crawled to the edge of the bed and reached down to grab his pants and fish his phone out.

Fuck, it was a work day.

He shut off the alarm fast and sagged back against the pillow. He looked over apologetically, but Cisco’s eyes were still closed, and he snored quietly.

Joe smiled at that, letting out a breath. He squinted at the screen on his phone, though he knew perfectly well what time his alarm was set to go off. He had time to shower, to grab some breakfast. He couldn’t have gotten more than four hours sleep, depending on how long they were actually in bed before they got any sleep. He hadn’t been timing it. From how it felt days might have gone by.

He rolled on his side, regarding Cisco thoughtfully. His hair was a mess around him, his mouth open as he snored, and Joe’s shoulders ached from the bite of his nails the night before. Love, Joe remembered. Give him a few weeks, he’d be saying it out loud. Breathing it into Cisco’s skin. Christ.

He was sore, he felt like a well wrung-out rag, and he was so happy he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He pushed himself to sit up and winced at the complaints in his thighs, his legs, his stomach. He’d gotten a hell of a workout the night before. He slipped his feet to the floor and looked around the room. They’d left the light on, but apparently both slept so hard it didn’t make the slightest difference.

Everything made him smile. The sight of their clothes in heaps all around the bedroom floor, the fallen bottle of lube on the dresser, the torn condom wrapper. The posters on the walls - more pop culture things. Joe recognized Star Wars and that thing from TV where some robots watched old movies and made fun of them. Barry used to like that one, he remembered. Made him smile.

There was a bathroom right across from the bed. He could see the gleam of ceramic tile through the cracked door. With a sigh he pushed to his feet. The cramp of muscles all up and down him made him smile.

The chaos of the bathroom made him smile. The haphazard collection of bottles and things on the counter, the fancy plug-in toothbrush, the hair dryer. He smiled at his reflection in the mirror, and smiled at the surprisingly roomy shower stall and its frosted glass door.

As the shower ran he thought of various scenarios involving him and Cisco and that wide stall. His body let him know fast that nothing was going to stir, but he was still happily distracting himself as he used Cisco’s soap and a spare washcloth to wash away sweat and dried spunk and the scent of sex.

He regarded himself in the mirror when he was done toweling off, realizing he needed a shave and that was going to have to wait. The idea of looking even that unkempt at work made him grin.

He had a change of clothes in the car with his stake-out kit, but they were emergency clothes. He was going to have to wear the pants and shirt currently lying in wrinkled heaps on the floor. The thought made him chuckle.

He left the bathroom and returned to the bed, and Cisco snored on. He put on his clothes and headed out to grab his kit from the car. When he returned to brush his teeth and handle the rest of his business, Cisco was still sleeping.

But when he came out of the bathroom the second time, disheveled but ready to be a cop again, Cisco rolled on his side and watched him with a heavy-lidded smile. “Morning.”

Joe reached the bed and slid a knee up on the mattress, leaning in and kissing him lightly. “Morning.”

“Gotta work?”

“Mm.” Joe stroked a thumb across his cheek, and that made them both smile. “How you feeling?”

Cisco thought about that. He looked up at Joe, laying his hand along Joe’s arm. “Lucky,” he said after a moment. “I feel really lucky.”

Joe couldn’t help but bend down again and give him another kiss for that.

 

* * *

 

Iris’s voicemail greeting was cheerful, to the point, short, and Joe was getting really tired of hearing it. “It’s your dad, Iris. Again. Give me a call sometime before my shift ends or I will be following Eddie home and I’ll stay there until we talk.”

He disconnected with a sigh and pushed through the door of the station.

Singh was in the lobby, leaning against the counter where their civilian aide sat playing receptionist. He was eyeing Joe like he’d been watching him through the glass doors. “Trouble?”

“Mmm.” Joe shoved his phone in his pocket. “You know that thing where you’re trying to push someone to talk to you but you have absolutely no ground to stand on?”

Singh’s eyebrows rose. “Somebody messed up.”

“Yeah.” Joe frowned. “Kids aren’t allowed to stay mad at their parents forever, right? There’s rules about that.”

“You’re asking the wrong guy, Joe. Not having kids is just one of the many perks of my current situation.”

They headed into the squad room together, and Joe looked around for Eddie. Not there yet. He debated heading to his desk and trying to call Iris from the work extension, but instead he had another idea.

Singh headed for his office, and Joe followed. “Hey...David.”

Singh glanced back at that, gesturing him in. “What’s up?”

Joe moved in to the office and shut the door. After a moment’s thought as Singh headed around his desk to sit down, his smile returned. “So. That talk we were having before…?”

“We’ve had a few.” Singh was openly staring at him now, curious.

Joe grinned. “Maybe you should clue me in on those things you think I need to be clear about. Before Cisco shows up again bringing me lunch.”

Singh blinked, then his eyes grew wider. “Well, well. Way to go, Mr. Ramon.” He gestured to the chair across from his desk. “Have a seat, Joe.”

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t until lunch that his phone buzzed and pulled him from paperwork: they pulled a fingerprint off the note of the woman who didn’t rob the bank a couple weeks back, so he was suddenly having to file process requests for fingerprint results. No fun, and he wanted the case off his desk. Worst outcome here would be finding this poor woman and arresting her. Cases like that always made him hurt.

But the phone was a distraction, and when he pulled it out he was already smiling in anticipation. Until he looked at the screen and saw the number being blocked.

He answered fast, but his smile was already dim. “West.”

“You know,” the response came instantly. “I underestimated you. I really did.”

Unfamiliar voice, a little pinched, a little sing-song. White, Joe guessed, no detectable accent, not very young, not very old. He mentally ran through the list of vocal identifiers they all trained on.

“People do that sometimes,” he answered to get his caller talking, when the pause after those first words stretched on.

“I didn’t think you were a real threat. A man your age? A cop? Please. What would you two even talk about? But you must have something going for you.”

Joe sat back at his desk and crossed an ankle over his knee. “The reason I’m not a threat is because there’s nothing to threaten, Rathaway. He’s been done with you for years.”

“Oh, you’re even a quick guesser! _Quelle surprise_.”

“You know if you don’t leave him alone I’m going to hunt you down.”

“If I thought you or anyone at that lab could catch me, I wouldn’t be talking to you now. And you, of all of them, are the least of my worries.”

“Then why did you call me?”

“It felt polite. I’ve been watching you.”

Joe tried not to tense up at that.

“Well, let’s be honest: I’ve been watching him, which means I’ve been seeing quite a bit of you. You’re more interesting than I would have thought. But not interesting enough.”

“Is this the part where I’m supposed to feel threatened?”

“No, this is: he only speaks Spanish when he feels really, really good. So nice work on that.”

Joe understood instantly. He sat up, shoulders squaring, his free hand making a fist. “You’ve got his apartment wired. You watched us.”

“Only listened, Detective. I’m not a _pervert_.”

Joe had to swallow, had to wrestle for control of his own voice. “That ends today.”

“Fair enough, I’ve had my fun. Good luck finding everything. Now let me wrap this up before you do something silly like try to trace this call. Tell him I’ll see him soon, will you?”

Joe opened his mouth to answer, but the call clicked off in his ear, and he tightened his fist around the phone hard enough to feel something start to crack.

 

* * *

 

“Dang, this is a nice place.” Cisco dropped his bag inside the door to the hotel room and whistled as he looked around. “I thought Doctor Wells was mad at me, but I guess not.”

Joe followed him into the room, setting his own bag down. It was a nice place, but he knew that from the high-ceilinged marble lobby downstairs. Full kitchen, living room area, separate bedrooms. Everything cream-coloured and amber and gold and shiny.

Wells had agreed with Joe instantly that Cisco wasn’t staying in that apartment until it was swept clean. Which meant STAR’s equipment and Wells himself going through every room, and then Joe’s team getting in tomorrow for a search just in case.

Cisco had argued, and Wells used the offer of a fancy hotel room as a counterargument. And Joe made it clear that he would stay with him. For protection. Wells hadn’t given that a second thought, but it had been the thing that made Cisco’s argument stop.

All in all Cisco had taken the news about Hartley’s spying well. Too well, which Joe assumed was because Caitlin and Wells were with him when Joe told him about it. But when Joe picked him up at the apartment Wells and Caitlin were still taking apart, he still seemed to be in pretty good spirits.

Even now he was looking around in smiling interest, toying with lamps and testing out chairs in the living room area. The TV on the back wall was a flatscreen that rivaled his home set, and he grabbed the remote and turned it on, but walked away without checking what was on. Background noise, Joe figured. Cisco seemed to like having something playing somewhere even if his focus was on something else entirely.

Joe grabbed both of their bags and headed to the door that he assumed led to a bedroom. He was right. And damn, he kind of wanted to know how much this place was setting Wells back for even the one night, because. Fancy. King-sized bed, rounded ceilings, huge picture window, plush seating. A fireplace, for god’s sake.

He set Cisco’s bag on the bed, and hesitated. He picked up his own bag after a moment’s thought, and turned to the door.

Cisco was in the doorway. “Nope. Down.”

Joe smiled faintly, taking his bag over to the bed. “Just thought I’d check.”

“Protect me in my bed. That’s what any decent Kevin Costneresque bodyguard would do, and that’s where all my bodyguard knowledge comes from, so that’s what I’m expecting.”

“If I remember right things didn’t go too well for him in that movie.”

“Guns aren’t Hartley’s style.” Cisco moved in and looked around, bypassing Joe without a smile or a touch or anything.

It was coming, Joe had a feeling.

“You think Wells feels guilty? Is that what this fancy place is all about?”

“Got me. Can’t say I mind much.” Joe sat on the bed, testing it out with a little bounce. Nice. “I did get a look from Barry when I said I’d be out again overnight tonight.”

“He was surprised?”

“He was shocked. To a degree I might call offensive.”

“You’re like his dad. Nobody wants to think of their dad as a sex god.” Cisco was looking out the wide picture window at the lights of Central City. “Hey, you can see the lab from here.”

Joe approached. You could see the lab from just about every tall building in Central City, so he wasn’t exactly surprised, but he wanted to be close to Cisco. This casualness, this was a mask, and he wanted to be nearby when it started to crumble.

He moved in behind Cisco, laying his hand on Cisco’s shoulder. “Yep, look at that.”

“The station, too.” Cisco pointed off west.

Joe’s eyes stayed on Cisco.

Cisco looked over, and after a moment he sighed. “I know, okay? I’m just...it’s been weird trying to figure out how to even react to everything.”

Joe squeezed his shoulder. “Take your time. Just remember I’m here.”

“Thanks.” Cisco leaned in to him for a minute before he turned and surveyed the room. “I mean this must be a huge pain for you, being here in this fancy hotel room with your slavishly devoted new boytoy.”

Joe chuckled and followed him, grabbing his bag and unzipping to pull out his toiletry kit. “It’s the job,” he said solemnly. “It calls for sacrifices sometimes.”

Cisco turned to him, wide-eyed. “I just thought of something. Wells didn’t give me any rules about tonight, and he’s totally loaded. You know what that means?”

Joe blinked, but grinned. “Room service?”

“Rooooooom service.” Cisco darted out to the living room, his smile much more genuine than it had been.

Joe laughed quietly as he headed for the attached bathroom. He stopped in the doorway, flipping on the light and gaping at the wide expanse of marble and stone. “Damn.”

“What? Hey, this was right in the drawer of the desk up front, just like that other place. I guess some things don’t change from….damn.” Cisco came in behind him and looked around. His eyes stopped at the huge stone tub and he turned round eyes to Joe. “Can we?”

“I think we’re morally obligated to,” Joe answered, setting his kit down on the long counter and approaching the tub. There were jets lining the inside and everything.

“This has ‘best of a bad situation’ written all over it.” Cisco moved to the tub and sat down on the wide rim. “Okay, we’re eating in here.”

“In the tub? Dessert, maybe. Steak would be clumsy.”

“True. Hey, steak!” Cisco turned his focus to the menu in his hand.

Joe left him to it with a grin, moving back out to the bedroom to unpack his clothes before they could wrinkle. Another workday tomorrow, and it would be an interesting one, getting Singh to approve a team to go through and sweep Cisco’s apartment.

Maybe Barry could handle that. He knew tech. It wasn’t his usual gig, but then Joe doubted Wells would leave anything un-found either way, mood he was in.

Joe had to give him some credit. Whatever was going on with him, whatever horrible things he’d done in his life, he really seemed to care about Cisco and Caitlin. And Barry. Joe was scared to let himself trust that fully, but it sure looked like it was true.

“Joe?”

“Hmm?” He glanced back, and the moment he saw Cisco’s expression he stopped what he was doing and moved to the bathroom door. “Oh, hey. Cisco.”

Cisco grabbed on when Joe opened his arms, and his suddenly pale face and too-bright eyes buried against Joe’s chest. “I just. I really don’t get why this is happening.”

Joe hugged him close, working to keep a glare from his face. There was a chance he’d actually hurt Rathaway when they caught him. “Rathaway’s an evil little shit, that’s the only reason for any of this.”

“You sound like Caitlin,” Cisco answered with a watery laugh.

She’d gotten positively foul-mouthed when Joe went to STAR with news about his phone call. (He’d spared them details, just left it at Hartley’s confessing to listening in on Cisco at home.) It had been gratifying at the time, since Joe had been trying to stay professional and _someone_ needed to throw a few curses Hartley’s way.

“I mean it,” he said after a minute, curling his hand at the back of Cisco’s neck. “This has nothing to do with you. He’s ticked off he can’t instantly have something he wants back, and this is how spoiled bastards like him react to being told no, I guess.”

“That...that’s what I don’t get. He didn’t want me. He could barely stand me when we were together.”

Joe sighed. “I doubt that’s true. I think there was a big difference between what he felt and what he wanted you to think he felt.”

“He _does_ have an entirely self-defeating personality.” Cisco drew back, but not far. He scrubbed at his face. “God, this is stupid. This is so stupid. He was in my apartment. He’s been listening to…” His face fell even further and he looked up at Joe. “Oh, god. That’s why he called you. He heard us last night.”

“Yeah. He did.”

“Oh my god, he was listening. He was _listening_ to--”

“Hey, Cisco. We’re going to stop him. I promise you that.”

“He wants this over. You and me. That’s why he’s doing so much so fast. He wants you to leave, god, of course he does. And you…”

Joe moved in a step, folding an arm firmly around Cisco’s waist. “And I,” he completed, “am not going anywhere.”

Cisco just shook his head, eyes lowered. “This is so much. You didn’t know you were getting into something like this. He might not stop. God, Joe, and he got away once, what if he...he could just get away, and he could just keep on…” He backed away, and Joe knew better than to try to hold on to him and force him to stay close. He turned away, his breath unsteady and harsh. “All you have to do is leave. He was fine leaving me alone when I was miserable and lonely, I bet he’d go away if you…”

Joe watched him, the line of his back, stiff and tense. “Is that what you want? Maybe you’re right. maybe he’d leave you alone.” He doubted it, but Cisco needed to follow his gut either way. Joe wasn’t about to stand in the way of that.

But the words were shockingly hard to speak. His throat wanted to close over them, to keep them inside.

“You say the word, and this is over. It’s not what I’d choose, but I won’t stay and keep subjecting you to this if you...”

Cisco was already shaking his head, and his shoulders were starting to heave. “Please, no. Please don’t leave me.”

Joe moved to him at that, moving around him and taking his arm, grasping his chin and tilting until Cisco was looking at him. “As long as you want me here,” he said, intense and sincere, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Cisco’s face crumbled, and Joe pulled him in as he gave in to tears.

It was a horrible thing, Joe knew, to be invaded like this. It was terrifying, especially when Hartley seemed to have such an edge. Joe was only furious at himself for not taking it deadly seriously from the first mention of some creepy ex. He’d seen these situations before, too many times to be casual about it. He’d interviewed men and women both while they were still in the hospital recovering from trauma, from rape, from near-fatal wounds. And he’d interviewed the family and friends of ones who didn’t make it. He’d seen women and men debating pressing charges against abusive partners but dreading a situation just like this one.

He’d caught a few of the bastards, too. Not enough of them, but those had been good collars. Those were the ones that let him sleep at night.

If he was a better man, less selfish, maybe he would leave. Maybe he would put Cisco’s safety above their happiness. But even that would just be a stopgap, because either Cisco would be alone the rest of his life or this would all start up again when he found someone else he wanted to be with.

No, this had to be handled now before it could go any further.

 

* * *

 

They ended up eating their room service (Cisco insisted, once he’d gotten himself together and remembered where they were) in the front room, watching some inane show on the flatscreen. Cisco spent most of the show explaining the history of the characters for Joe, who tended to find his rendition much more interesting than anything on screen.

“I think I can safely say now that lobster is totally overrated.” Cisco pushed his tray aside with a sigh as he finished.

Joe had tried a few bites (and fed Cisco some steak) and he nodded his agreement. “I’ve had it better. The hot sauce helped.”

Cisco grinned. “It usually does. And let’s face it, dipping just about anything in melted butter is gonna make me a fan. Still. I expected more.”

“There’s always dessert.”

“Ugh. Give me an hour.” He sat back, hand flat on his stomach, sighing. “At least the night wasn’t a total ruin.”

Joe glanced over, swallowing the last bite of his steak. “Wasn’t ruined at all.”

“Last I checked crying jags weren’t particularly sexy.”

He chuckled at that, and leaned over to set his tray on the wide dark coffee table in front of that overstuffed couch. “No, not particularly. But it’s not like you’ve got to be sexy nonstop for me to enjoy spending time with you.” He angled himself into the corner of the couch, turning to face Cisco as the TV murmured on, ignored. “I don’t mind being here when you break down, okay? I can’t say I like it, because you in pain doesn’t bring me any kind of joy, but if I thought you were saving it until you were alone? That would be worse.”

Cisco regarded him. He smiled after a moment, and pushed himself up to crawl over and drop against Joe’s chest. “You are a very good man, Joe.”

Joe’s arm curled around him instantly. “There’s some selfishness in it,” he admitted, “but I do alright.”

“Best kind of selfishness there is, if you ask me.” Cisco settled in, head under Joe’s chin, hand against his chest. He sighed, deep and content. “Tell me something about you I don’t know. I mean there’s gotta be loads of stuff.”

Joe considered that, fingers brushing up and down his side absently. “My folks,” he offered. “Were the greatest two people you’d ever want to meet. My mom was a singer, met dad at Fisk down in Tennessee. He was taking an elective with the jazz band, she came in to sing a few numbers, and that was that.”

“She’s the one that raised you on Ella and Nina?”

“Oh, yeah. And Bessie and Etta, Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy. She liked the blues. Me, I liked funk as it was going out and modern r&b as it was coming up. Jazz was our compromise. Ella was the one we could always agree on.”

“What about your dad?”

“He didn’t feel much of a way about music. He played to make his own dad happy, and he liked listening to mom sing, but he was a businessman. He worked, he kept us fed. Made us laugh all the time. We moved here because his people were from Springfield, but I never worked out why that mattered since he rarely went to see them. I figure he was mostly just trying to get us out of the south.”

Cisco was quiet for a moment, obviously hearing the untold stories behind those last words and trying to decide whether or not to pursue them. “So where are they now? Your folks.”

“Car accident, both died instantly. I was still in college.” Joe smiled and bent to press his lips against Cisco’s hair at Cisco’s apologetic sound in response to that. He looked out at the TV, though his gaze stayed unfocused. “Funny thing is, I don’t think either of them would be very happy with me now. They’d love the kids, of course, though my dad would’ve given me a lot of talking to about bringing an orphaned white child into my house years ago. But neither of them would’ve wanted to see a badge on my hip. Cops were never friends.”

Cisco nodded against his chest. “Not to us, either. At least not when I was a kid, in the Heights. The one thing you never, ever did was trust a cop to do anything but slap cuffs on you. Kinda funny, isn’t it?”

Joe hummed in agreement. “Life’s that way, I guess. You live in one reality and you grow into another one. Complete with metahumans and time travel.”

Cisco laughed, turning to muffle the sound into Joe’s shirt. “You a cop and me a geek engineer who helps chase bad guys. We’re the worst movie premise ever.”

“Or the best.” Joe’s hand drifted up, fingers skimming through Cisco’s hair. “Nice of you not to mention the fact that I’m old enough to be your...something unflattering.”

Cisco huffed and sat up, scowling at him. But the scowl melted into a smile. “Hmm. Now that you mention it, you’re totally old enough to be the rigid professor to my failing college student. Or the seductive dad to my innocent babysitter who needs a ride home. The broke customer to my pizza delivery boy. Ooh, or the stern cop to my troubled delinquent, that one’s super relevant…”

Joe laughed and grabbed him, hooking his waist and pulling him in. “Wrong kind of movies, pal.”

Cisco tsked like he was no fun, but curled back into him and buried his face in Joe’s neck, mouthing at his skin.

“Mm.” Joe dropped his head back against the arm of the couch and let his eyes shut for a luxurious moment. He shivered at the warmth of Cisco’s breath, the press of his lips. “For the record, I’d be happy to let you keep this up for quite a while, but tomorrow’s gonna be busy...”

Cisco was already drawing back, disappointment furrowing his brow.

Joe smiled. “...and we have a tub to try out.”

His grin returned instantly and he jumped up off the couch. “Yes! Naked time! I’ll go start the bath, you grab the dessert! We are about to get _romantic_ up in here.”

Joe rolled his eyes but laughed, shaking his head with an uncontrollable swell of fondness as Cisco darted back to the bedroom.

 

* * *

 

“The DA wants to press charges.”

He wasn’t dozing, wasn’t even halfway there, but Joe started wide awake as a file hit his desk with a thwack. He scowled up at Eddie, who scowled right back down at him, so Joe let it go and grabbed the file.

“Press charges against…oh.” The case details were familiar, that bank robbery that never happened. But the name of the suspect was new. “Fingerprints got a hit?”

“Yep. Sarah Cheevers, and she’s got a record. Real hardened criminal we almost let slip.”

Joe flipped through her file, glancing at Eddie when he noted the hardness of his sarcasm, and then back to the file to see the single arrest at 19 for drunk and disorderly. College kid was intoxicated in public. Christ.

He dropped the file with another hard thwack and looked towards Singh’s office. “Is he serious about this?”

Eddie shrugged. “The DA is, not much we can do.” He frowned at Joe. “There’s a whole lot of unexplained crime happening in the city these days. There are a lot of strange people who do horrible things and then vanish without any explanation, and our solve record’s rotten now because of it.”

“You mean our press. And the DA wants to take it out on a poor woman who didn’t actually do anything.”

“Looks like it.” Eddie nodded at the file. “Her last known address is a few years old and she’s not there anymore. Hasn’t reported income in two years. There’s a BOLO out on her car, I figure there’s a good chance she’s living in it. Hell, maybe she left town.”

“Here’s hoping.” Joe pushed to his feet, glaring at Singh’s shut door. “Fine, let’s go looking for this woman. A rookie public defender would get her down to a misdemeanor with one look at a judge, but what do I know? Let’s stick her in jail for a couple of months and make her situation that much worse.”

Eddie leaned over to his desk and grabbed his suit jacket. He spoke quietly as they headed out the door. “I can’t decide if I hate this more than the unstoppable disappearing metahumans or less.”

 

* * *

 

“So the law,” Joe said into the phone, tilting back and trying to catch some of the weak sunlight through the windshield, “says that it’s a criminal offense to walk into a bank with even the intent to rob it. Just walking in, thinking about it: crime.”

“A thought crime, that’s...kind of Orwellian, isn’t it?”

“Yep. I mean, bright side, we still can’t read minds yet. So the intent has to be physicalized in some form before we can do anything about it. But yeah. Even if you don’t actually pull out a demand note, if you have a note in your pocket and someone finds out, you’re going to jail.”

“Wow.” Cisco hummed thoughtfully, his voice still muffled by whatever it was he was in the middle of working on. “So this specific case that you’re not allowed to talk about might involve this kind of situation?”

“Maybe. Theoretically.” Joe sighed. “It’s a good law, believe it or not. It means that if security stops a thief before they can ask for money, they can still go down for attempting the crime. But most good laws can get twisted sometimes.”

“Hey, I’m not doubting you.” Cisco’s voice was warm in his ear, despite sounding like he was clanging in the middle of a wind tunnel or something. “If this is one of those twisted times, you'll find a way to fix it.”

Joe grimaced. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do.” There was a moment’s pause, a loud, sudden clang and a gusty sigh.

Joe managed a smile. “The hell are you doing over there?” ‘’

“You remember that giant array you and Caitlin pulled me out of the other day?”

“If ‘array’ means ‘big heap of things I don’t understand’, then yeah.”

Cisco laughed. “Right. Well, that is an inverter and energy storage system we’ve been setting up. Wells had the idea to go partial solar, drum up good will. Green energy, give back to the city’s power grid if we can get efficient enough, that kind of thing. The panels have been up and collecting for a month now, but there is always something going wrong with this damn thing, and I can’t figure out what. Wells isn’t prioritizing it, because he gets these ideas but he really couldn’t care less about public perception so it’s kind of left to us to make it happen.”

“Sounds like something I’d never be able to help with in the slightest.”

“Which makes us equal as far as current complaints go.” Cisco’s voice cleared out, like he was emerging from whatever tunnel he’d been cramped in. “Whatever, I’m gonna have to head up to the roof and see if the problem’s with the panel connections. Computer says they’re all good, but something’s happening here. Which is not cool. My tech doesn’t misbehave, damn it.”

“Yeah, you have fun with that.” Joe spotted Eddie heading back to the car, their lunches in hand, and he straightened from his slouch. “Right, I gotta get back to this. Want a ride home tonight?”

“Does it come with a free overnight guest?”

Joe groaned, but the smile ruined the effect. “I’m already more sleep-deprived than normal. Promise me actual sleep, I’ll promise you an overnight guest.”

“Boring, but doable. I _have_ been hitting the coffee extra hard today. Right, see you in a few hours, then.”

Joe hung up and slid the phone in his pocket as Eddie opened the passenger door. Of course he’d never actually planned to let Cisco spend the night in that apartment alone. It didn’t feel safe to Joe, which meant he doubted it would feel safe to Cisco, even after Wells and their gear had gone through the place and stripped Rathaway’s infestation from it.

Eddie dropped into the seat with a sigh and stretched out the Big Belly bag. “If Iris asks, I fought you on this meal kicking and screaming.”

“Hey, I’m persuasive, what can I say?” Joe took his burger with a grin.

 

* * *

 

Sarah Cheevers wasn’t at any location the database spit out as possibles, and the BOLO on her car hadn’t drummed up any hits, so by that afternoon Joe was feeling slightly more cheerful than he had been. Maybe she really had skipped town. He didn’t envy her a future speeding ticket that led to the discovery of an open warrant, though, so it still wasn’t any great solution.

But as far as the day itself went, he was feeling a little better about things.

Which made the ringing phone and the blocked number on his screen make him want to throw the thing against a wall and just forget he even had a cell.

He answered it, because his conscience couldn’t let a call go unanswered, but he was braced. “West.”

“Okay. You. You have to--”

“No.” He spoke as soon as he recognized the voice. “No I don’t have to do a damned thing, Rathaway. I’m done with you. I’m not a piece in this game you’re playing, and Cisco isn’t your opponent or your prize or whatever the hell you think he is. This is done.”

“Listen to me here, I’m--”

“Go to hell.” He spoke clearly and then lowered the phone, ignoring the instant, sharp response barking through the speaker. He disconnected the call, and tried to feel good about it.

But Rathaway sounded strange. Pinched. Escalating, maybe? Maybe the silencing of those listening devices they pulled from Cisco’s place had kicked him over some edge. Maybe ignoring him like this would only make that worse.

But maybe that was a good thing. If he was on edge he’d make a mistake. As long as Cisco was safe at the lab and Joe was with him whenever he left, he felt pretty good about handling Rathaway when he made some kind of move.

His phone rang again just as he tried to put it back in his pocket. He tensed, but peered at the screen and relaxed when he saw Cisco’s name. He answered with a small smile. “Hey.”

There was a pause. “Joe. Hey.”

Paranoia was never too far away lately, and something in that greeting made Joe’s back stiffen. Maybe Joe hadn’t been Rathaway’s first call. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to hear your voice. We talked earlier, I know, but...”

Joe’s tension faded, though not entirely. “Not like having to talk to you in the middle of a day’s any kind of hardship. How’s it going over there?”

“Good.” Cisco sounded strained. He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Hey. I wanted to say something.”

“That’s usually the point of phone calls.” Joe smiled, but for some reason his instincts were shouting at him. “What is it?”

“I don’t...just. Um. You remember when we first started hanging out? When you were on your it’s-too-late, I-don’t-do-that thing?”

“Wasn’t that long ago.”

“I know. But. I mean. Whatever happens. With us. Just...you have to stop thinking like that. You...Joe, you shouldn’t be alone.”

Joe frowned. “Cisco. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“...there’s a lot going on.”

That was true. Joe relaxed, thinking that he had to stop letting Cisco’s casual ease fool him. Even considering his breakdown the other night, nobody handled getting stalked by a homicidal ex as well as he seemed to be. “We’re gonna get him. You know that, right?”

Another pause. A muffled sound against the phone, like it was covered temporarily, and then Cisco finally answered. It was quiet. “Look, just promise me, okay?”

Joe looked down at his desk and away from the general hecticness around him. He focused on Cisco’s voice, troubled. “Promise you what?”

“That you won’t be alone.”

Joe reached into his pocket. His keys were there. He just wasn’t sure if he needed them yet. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were breaking up with me.”

“Never.” At least there was no hesitation in that response. “Now. Would you just. Prom...promise me.”

Joe stood up as that rasp in Cisco’s voice started making sense. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m sorry.”

Damn it. Damn it, he got to Cisco. That son of a bitch. Joe grabbed his keys and looked around for Eddie. “Where are you? Is he there? Did he hurt you?”

“Joe.” Cisco let out a breath, and then he stopped whatever he was doing to try to sound casual. “Please. Just. Promise me. You’ll be okay, right?”

His heart plummeted, his throat threatened to close. He looked around, waving when he spotted Eddie coming through the door. “Cisco, whatever’s going on, just. We’re gonna get to you, you’re fine. You’re gonna be fine.” He shoved his hand over the phone. “Call Barry. Now.”

Eddie frowned, but grabbed his phone and followed Joe instantly when he headed out the front door and sped to his car.

“Where are you?”

There was a pause.

“Cisco! Where are you?” His voice was sharper than he meant. Fear had stripped his control.

“Lab,” came the response, hushed. “Roof. Panels.”

Joe hit the button to unlock the car as soon as he was near enough for it to work. “Eddie!”

“Got him, what’s up?”

“Tell him to get to STAR. Tell him to hurry. Cisco? You there?”

There was no answer.

Joe cursed and dropped the keys in his focus on the silence in his ear. He bent to grab them. “Cisco, come on, speak up. I’m still here. Eddie?”

Eddie listened to a response in his ear. “Says he’s been there all morning.”

“Well what the hell is he…tell him to get up to the roof, some kind of solar panels, whatever Cisco’s working on. Now!”

“You heard that?” Eddie barked into the phone. He nodded at Joe. “He’s gone.” He lowered his phone and reached out, grabbing the keys as Joe fumbled with them. “I’ll drive.”

Joe moved to the passenger side and climbed in, holding the phone close to his ear. “Barry’ll be there any second, okay? Cisco?”

And by then it was happening. He could hear a sudden voice in the background and a rush of movement. “Oh my _god_. Hang on, Cisco.”

There was no sound when Barry did what he did. Joe heard the clatter of Cisco’s phone hitting cement and then dead silence.

He hung up shakily. Memorial was the closest hospital to STAR. Whatever happened, whatever was going on, Barry would take Cisco to help. “Memorial. Head that way. Barry will call soon.”

Eddie was pale. He handed his phone to Joe just in case and got the car moving.

Eddie’s phone rang again less than a minute later. Joe answered instantly, finger jabbing at the screen unsteadily. “Barry?”

“Joe? He’s at Memorial. Caitlin’s here. I’m going to look for Rathaway. He can’t be far from the lab.”

“You find him, Barry. Get him.” Joe hung up and nodded Eddie on. “He’s at Memorial.”

“Already?” Eddie stared over at him, but focused on the road.

Rathaway. Joe remembered that phone call and wondered starkly if Hartley was actually trying to alert him to whatever the hell had happened. Maybe he’d lost some precious minutes refusing to listen to him.

Damn it.

 

* * *

 

Caitlin was more rumpled than usual, no doubt from her rush trip to the hospital with Barry. She strode up to meet them, and hugged Joe without hesitation. “I have no idea what’s happening yet.”

He shook his head, hugging her harder than he meant to. “I don’t know details.” He drew back, worried.

She lofted a clipboard. “They gave me paperwork. We’ve been each other’s emergency contacts since the accelerator accident, they’re letting me do this. But I don’t know much. I just.”

He nodded, seeing shock and confusion warring in her face.

“Barry didn’t even say what happened. Just that he was hurt. Do you know?”

“Only that it was Rathaway.”

Her shock sizzled into instant fury, contorting her expression. “I’ll kill him.”

“Stand in line.” Joe’s urgency kept him tense, but there was nothing more to be done there. He could flash his badge for answers, but Eddie had already left them behind to talk to the reception counter.

He slumped back, rubbing his face, feeling a shiver in his fingers. Too much, too sudden. He was stunned.

“How did you know?” She watched him, the anger sliding back again. She was feeling all the things he was too stalled-out to feel himself, that was nice of her.

“He called me.” Joe pulled out his phone, looking at the screen as if some additional clues would appear by magic.

“Cisco? Why didn’t he call Barry right away?”

Joe could only think of one explanation for that, and for the softness in Cisco’s voice getting more urgent as he tried to make Joe promise to be okay without him.

He blinked, and his vision blurred.

“They can’t tell us anything until he gets out of trauma.” Eddie approached, and hesitated a few steps away, looking from one to the other of them. “Everything okay?”

Joe shot him a look, glaring to keep from doing something he’d regret, like giving in to the things bubbling in his chest.

The phone in his hand rang and he very nearly threw it. He glared at the screen, and saw it was a blocked number.

He pushed off the wall and took a few strides away from the other two. “West,” he answered through his teeth.

“It was an accident.”

“I wouldn’t care even if I believed it.”

“Believe what you want.” Rathaway wasn’t as urgent anymore, but there was something intent in his voice. “The sound wave shouldn’t have made the damned control panel explode. The power should have been bypassed. He fixed it sooner than he was supposed to.”

Explosion. Fuck. Joe shut his eyes and tried not to imagine what kind of injuries might have been killing Cisco slowly in some hectic urgent care room Joe couldn’t get to.

“I’m going to find you,” he promised, and he didn’t recognize his own voice.

Hartley sounded hushed. “I’m not going to prison.”

“No,” Joe confirmed. “You might not make it that far.”

There was a pause. “Tell him I’m sorry.”

“I’ve known a lot of men like you before, Rathaway.” Joe fisted his hand and turned, looking to make sure Eddie and Caitlin were back where he’d left them. “I’ve been a cop twenty five years. I’ve arrested dozens of you. And you always say you’re sorry once the damage is done and you’re looking at consequences.”

“I am _not_ some garden variety criminal, _Detective_.”

“Heard that before, too.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“Let me tell you where I’m standing right now, and maybe you’ll understand why I just don’t give a shit.”

“I lost _everything_!” Rathaway was back to being pinched, frantic. Guilty. Good. Least he deserved. “I lost my family. I lost my job, I lost my reputation and my future. And I was trying to save people! I was trying to do the right thing! Wells _ruined_ me for that!”

Joe’s free hand fisted. He watched Eddie sit beside Caitlin, who was looking at the clipboard in her hand, still and stunned. “What does any of that have to do with Cisco Ramon?”

There was a pause. When Hartley responded, there was something like grief in his voice. It only made Joe want all the more to reach through the phone and wrap his hands around the guy’s throat.

“I was his whole world. He didn’t care about anything more than he cared what I thought. It drove him nuts, I know it did, but he felt it all the same. Even when he hated me, he burned over what I thought. He obsessed. Have you ever had…” Another brief pause. “I deserve him. I was good, and I was punished for it, and the _least_ I deserve is to be the most important person in his life again.”

Joe swallowed. “And what did he do to deserve you?”

The silence on the other end was stark. “It was an accident.”

“His car? The bugs in his place? The way he can’t walk around alone outside without being scared?”

“God, cut the dramatics. That’s my area, and I’m better at it.” The snip was returning to his voice slowly. “Just tell him I’m sorry. Tell him it was an accident. Swear to that and...and I’ll swear that he won’t see me again. I’ll leave the city. I’ve been considering it anyway.”

For a split second it was tempting, but then Joe remembered who he was and where he was. “You’re trying to make a deal with me? You’re insane. I’m a cop, and more important I’m the guy who’s gonna throw you in a cell and walk away. You’re in no place to make deals.”

“You won’t catch me. I’m too smart. If the Flash is looking for me now he’s nowhere close.”

“I don’t need the Flash. I’ll find you myself. And in the meantime, I have better things to do than listen to insincere apologies and crazy entitled rationalizations. Once I find out if he’s going to live or die, that’s when you need to start looking over your shoulder.”

He brought the phone down and pressed the screen, disconnecting the call firmly.

Caitlin looked up when he approached. Eddie got to his feet. Joe regarded them both. “This was my fault.”

They both frowned in utterly similar ways.

He held up a hand when Eddie’s mouth opened to reply. “He went after Cisco because he thought I was getting to be too important to him.”

Caitlin blinked. “You two have been going out for less than two weeks.” Her eyes shot to Eddie instantly, huge, but his lack of surprise at the news was obvious, and she relaxed.

"He was right, though." Joe shrugged. “It became important fast. For both of us.”

Her lips tugged in a reluctant and short-lived smile. “I’m glad.” Then the smile was gone. “This better not be turning into one of those ‘so I’m leaving him for his own good’ conversations.”

Joe let out a breath that would have been a laugh if there’d been anything funny in the world right then. “Not happening. I just. I need that out there. I need you to know.”

“Fine. We know. Now sit.” Her eyes were still wary on him.

Joe smiled faintly, but he sat.

Eddie stood over them for a moment as they sat. He cleared his throat after a few seconds. “I’m going to respect the situation here enough not to ask how Barry got Cisco and Caitlin both to this hospital in one minute’s time. I’m going to assume the obvious answer, considering what else I know about.”

Joe met his eyes and nodded.

“I’m also going to call in to work, since we left a little abruptly and the captain frets.” Eddie smiled weakly back at him, and headed off to make a call.

Caitlin got to work on the paperwork fastened to that clipboard.

Joe sat back and drew in a breath, let it out, and tried not to think too hard about anything. Not yet. Not until he knew either way.

 

* * *

 

When his focus returned, Caitlin was up and sitting at a chair at the end of the long lobby, in a quiet conversation with Harrison Wells. Wells looked grim. Nothing unusual there.

Eddie was up, too, and when Joe spotted him he realized who must have caught his focus without his even realizing it.

He stood, and felt strangely unsteady.

Iris hurried past Eddie and Barry. When she reached Joe she grabbed him in a hug without hesitation. “I am furious with you.”

He nodded, hugging her back tightly. “I know. I’m sorry.”

She drew back, meeting his eyes as if to make sure he was sorry enough. But she waved it away after a moment. “Eddie said Cisco was hurt?”

Joe nodded. “And that’s still all the details we’ve got.” His eyes went to Barry over her shoulder.

He reached them and frowned, shaking his head.

No Rathaway. Damn it. Joe wasn’t sure he really expected him to be caught so easily, though.

Iris’s eyes stayed on Joe. “Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t Joe be okay?”

She didn’t even hesitate to look over at Barry. “They’re _dating_. People care about the people they’re dating.”

Joe felt a moment's surprise, but only a brief moment. Hiding the Flash from her for so long had been such a fluke. His baby girl was smarter than all of them.

“What? Who’s dating?”

Her gaze stayed on Barry, steady.

Barry blinked, and those wide green eyes went to Joe’s face. “Wait. Who?”

“Barry, come on. They go off on a trip together and suddenly dad’s dating someone he isn’t sure how to tell us more about? What did you think was going on?” Iris’s eyes went back to Joe. “We’re going to talk about you and me and how this whole honesty thing is going to work from now on. But later.”

He nodded, and when he blinked he was surprised to feel his vision going blurry, and his eyes going hot. “I love you, baby.”

“That’s what’s saving your ass right now.” But her eyes were gentle, and she gripped his arm. “You’re okay? Really?”

“Better once we get some kind of news. But yeah, I’m okay.”

“Joe is dating Cisco.”

Iris’s glare at Barry survived longer than her attempt to look sternly at her dad.

He didn’t actually seem to notice, which was a good indicator of his shock. “Wait. That’s not what you’re saying.”

Joe’s gaze went to Barry.

Barry grinned, then looked around and tampered down on the expression. He looked back at Joe and Iris.

She slid in close to Joe and put her arm around his waist as they returned his look. Joe drew in a deep breath, glad when he blinked and nothing spilled loose.

Barry’s smile vanished. “Come on, wait. No. Joe? And Cisco. My Joe? _This_ Joe. And Cisco Ramon.”

Any other time, any other day, he might have felt amused. Now he was only grim. “How was he? When you brought him here? They haven’t told us anything.”

Barry’s eyes were owl-round on him. “He, uh. He was. Joe, come on. Really?”

“Barry.” Iris’s voice was a snap.

He started, and swallowed. “He was bleeding pretty bad. Looked like something up on the roof blew out and he got hit with...a lot. His neck was cut. Not his throat,” he said fast, holding out an arm to Joe fast thanks to whatever it was that escaped Joe’s control and showed on his face at those words. “His neck. It was bad, but not like you’re thinking. And there was something big, some kind of...shrapnel.” He brought a hand to his stomach, rubbing absently over a certain spot.

Joe nodded slowly, though he was no closer to feeling any better.

Barry looked from him to Iris uncomfortably, then back to Joe. “He was breathing. His heart was beating.”

“That’s good.” A hand appeared on Joe’s arm, and Caitlin offered a wan smile when he looked over. “The human body is a lot stronger than people think. Most projectile wounds are survivable.”

“Cisco is strong.” Wells moved his chair around Caitlin’s other side, regarding the others who stood there. “And don’t underestimate the sheer resentment that will keep him from dying at the hands of Hartley Rathaway of all people.”

Joe tensed at the mention of Rathaway, and the words felt sharp until he remembered that according to Cisco no one had ever known about he and Hartley’s relationship. He wasn’t sure he accepted that anything that happened at the lab escaped Wells’ notice, but he managed a smile in answer all the same.

“Caitlin Snow?”

The formal call made their entire circle turn instantly. Caitlin strode off between Wells and Eddie. Joe tensed, wanting to go with her, but he stood where he was. She would tell them whatever news she got, and if he went with her odds were the whole pack would, and news might be stalled by arguments about who could hear it.

He was a grown man, a cop, a dad surrounded by his kids. He couldn’t afford to lose it.

There was silence as they waited. He watched Catilin’s back as she talked across the counter to a uniformed man, but then he couldn’t stand it anymore and his gaze shifted down to Iris. He brought his arm around her shoulder and squeezed.

She glanced back at him and smiled, small and quick.

Barry didn’t notice when Joe’s eyes went to him. He watched Caitlin with the rest of them, leaning forward, weight on his toes, looking like he wanted to be there with her.

Barry’s reaction to the idea of Joe and Cisco hadn’t been exactly heartening. Joe didn’t have much doubt that it was sheer surprise and not something deeper, but surprise could have a hell of an impact, he didn’t want to dismiss it.

But it wasn’t the time to think about it. Iris’s grip around his waist tightened and he looked up again to see Caitlin approaching.

She was smiling.

Not huge, not a grin, but it was enough that Joe let out a breath and sagged a little. Iris gripped him.

“Okay. So.” Caitlin reached them and let out a breath. Her smile got wider. “There were a lot of superficial injuries. The laceration in his neck was a worry, but only because he lost a lot of blood fast. They’re replacing that, and his heart hasn’t missed a single beat in the meantime.” She shook her head, her smile fond and obviously meant for her absent best friend. “If there’s such a thing as a good place to get stabbed in the abdomen with a chunk of metal, Cisco managed to get hit there. His liver, his stomach, his intestines, they all seem to be intact. They’re taking him to surgery soon, but--”

“Surgery.” Wells spoke sharply before Joe could.

“They have to be sure, and he did get some damage. They’ll probably have to remove his gallbladder, that seems to be where the metal tore him up. They’re going to check for internal bleeding, things like that. It will be a few hours, but we should know something tonight.”

Joe shut his eyes for a moment, listening to the sighs and murmurs of relief around him.

“If everything goes well, he could walk out of here in less than a week.”

If everything went well. Joe tried to be an optimist, but christ. “Removing his…”

“Gallbladder.” Caitlin’s voice was soft. “It’s relatively common. Most people come out of it completely fine. Though it does affect digestion, especially post-surgery, which he’ll hate.”

Joe’s eyes opened and he looked at her, waiting.

She shrugged apologetically. “It means a diet. Low-fat, high-fiber. Weeks of it.”

He blinked. A moment later a chuckle escaped him, rusty and unsteady. A diet. For Cisco Ramon, a fate worse than death. Oh god. He laughed, twisting towards Iris and pulling her into a hug in relief.

 

* * *

 

“Joe.”

The surprise on Singh’s face was obvious, and Joe managed a faint smile before trudging his way to the captain’s office. It had been a long day, a long night, a long morning.

“What’s the news on Cisco?” Singh shut the door behind him and gestured to the couch, sitting beside him instead of going around his desk.

Joe dropped with a sigh. “Good. He was in and out of surgery in a couple of hours. They sedated him through the night, and let him come out of it this morning. He’s drugged to the gills, but he’s got good company with him.”

“And you’re here.”

Joe nodded. “I’m here. No compassion leave for something like this.”

“You know me better than that.”

Joe smiled after a moment, faint. “Doesn’t mean I’ll take advantage. He’s going to be fine, and I’m going to spend my evenings up there until they let him out. Meantime I’ve got a job to do.”

“Someone was responsible for what happened to him?”

“Hartley Rathaway.”

Singh blinked. “Rathaway. The estranged heir apparent to Central City’s favorite billionaire family.”

“That’s the one. I’ll get an official statement once Cisco’s aware enough to talk. It’s gonna be up to him, since there’s not a lot of evidence besides a few seconds of a hooded figure on STAR Labs’ security tapes.”

Singh sat back, looking like that news utterly exhausted him. “Get the statement, then we’ll try for a warrant.”

“I got a confession, David.”

“Taped?”

“No. Over the phone. He’s _sorry_.”

“Not sorry enough that he won’t lawyer up in a split second if we try to bring him in. And you bet his homophobic parents will find enough compassion to pay that lawyer obscene money to keep their namesake looking as clean as possible.”

Joe grimaced. He wasn’t sure Singh realized exactly how out of his mind Hartley was, and how actually bringing him in was going to be way harder than he made it sound. But the premise was still completely true.

For a moment he understood the appeal of the secret metahuman prison beneath STAR Labs. But, luckily, that moment passed.

“I’m going to get the report going on this either way. I’ll wait for Cisco’s statement before I file anything, but this isn’t getting buried.”

“I wouldn’t bury it.” Singh clapped him on the shoulder and stood, moving to his desk. “Cisco’s family to this precinct, after those shields he brought us and the help he’s given. Even if he wasn’t someone special to you, we’d still fight for him.”

Joe tried to feel good about that as he left, but Singh's tone had been grim. They would fight. Joe would fight harder than anyone. But he'd been a cop a long time, and sometimes a fight wasn't enough.

 

* * *

 

“Bad news or good news first?”

Joe groaned but let Caitlin stop him from going into the hospital room. She nudged him back into the hallway. “Surprise me.”

“Bad news, we’re about eighty percent sure Hartley Rathaway is no longer in the city.” She waved her phone in her hand. “I have to get to the lab to hear more, but Doctor Wells is pretty sure he’s found a trail that ends at the airport with a ticket to New York.”

“When he’s one hundred percent sure, let me know. Until then we don’t relax.” Joe was tired. He hadn’t been getting the best sleep before that explosion that hurt Cisco, and he sure as hell wasn’t sleeping now. Everything was hitting him like punches today, every bit of news felt like it scoured his skin just a little more.

Caitlin smiled sympathetically. “The good news? When he’s awake the drugs have him _this close_ to coherent.”

That made him smile. “Then this is where I leave you. Go home, get some sleep.”

She only smiled and headed down the hall, and he knew full well she’d go right to the lab and dig into these leads on Rathaway. He watched her go, thinking it was very possible that Cisco wasn’t the only trustworthy person at that lab.

But he didn’t think about her for long. He turned and pushed the door open, and relief hotter than opening a car door in August washed over him at the smile he was greeted with.

“Joe!”

Well, if he was being critical it was a pretty bleary smile, and Cisco’s eyes were only half-lidded, and he didn’t move more than lifting his head off the pillow. But Joe wasn’t in a mood to be critical, not about this.

He crossed the room in three long strides and instantly reached for the hand not inserted with IV needles and draped with tubes. “Hey.”

“Hey!”

The bandages around his neck were still wrapped thickly, but the scrapes and bruises on his face were healing up quickly. Joe leaned down and pressed his lips against Cisco’s temple, feeling the heat of his skin. Caitlin said a little overheating was to be expected, but he didn’t have to like it.

He smoothed down Cisco’s increasingly lank hair and smiled. “You look great.”

Cisco snorted. “Giraffe.”

Joe laughed, pulling up the chair Caitlin had no doubt kept warm most of the day. “Sexiest one on Youtube, remember?”

“Mm, you have to say that, you want all _this_.” Cisco lifted his other hand to gesture down at himself, but the tubes tugged to remind him of their presence, and his arm dropped again heavily. “Caitlin says we have to talk about serious things.”

“Oh yeah? I’m pretty sure serious things can mostly wait.” He brought Cisco’s hand to his mouth and brushed lips over his knuckles. “I’m fine with waiting.”

“She says Hartley’s gone.”

“Well. She needs to learn a little something about bedside manner and stressing out people who are fresh out of surgery.”

“Like almost a whole day out,” Cisco protested weakly. His fingers twitched in Joe’s hand. “Tell me.”

“He got away. We don’t know he’s gone yet.” Joe hesitated, but leaned in and stroked his hair out of his face. “He called me. Said this was an accident, said he was ‘sorry’.”

Cisco blinked, but thought about it. “I buy that. Should’ve seen his face. Panic.” He smiled, but it faded. “He ran, though. Not sorry enough.”

Joe kept his agreement silent. Hartley Rathaway would never be sorry enough. “That’s what she said we should talk about? Rathaway?”

“Nope.” Cisco tugged his hand up, still in Joe’s grip, and touched the back of his fingers to Joe’s cheek. “She says if I ever get hurt and don’t call for help again she’ll shave my head.”

“Cisco…” Joe swallowed and squeezed his hand. “If you ever do that again I’ll lend her my clippers.”

“Oh m’god, conspiracy.” Cisco’s head dropped back on the pillow. “Thought I was dead.”

Joe shut his eyes. He felt the weak grip in Cisco’s fingers, the too-warm heat in his hand.

“Thought I was dead, and it was so weird. I thought, Joe. Joe’s g’nna be sad. G’nna go back to being alone. Seemed wrong. You...Joe?”

Joe drew in a breath and forced his eyes open and his gaze up.

Cisco met his eyes, his gaze glassy but steady. “You’re too good to be alone.”

Joe shook his head. He clutched Cisco’s hand tightly.

“You’re too good. Besides, you’re really good at this. Being with someone. You do it well.”

He laughed, but it was raspy. “You, Cisco. Not ‘someone’. Never would’ve happened like this if it was anyone but you.”

“Pssht.” Cisco didn’t argue further, though. He blinked heavy eyes at Joe. “Best thing’t’s ever happened to me, y’know that?”

Joe laughed. He brought his other hand down, grasping Cisco’s in both of his. “And you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a whole lot of years. So stop worrying about me, and just worry about getting better.”

“Fine, god, I’ll _recover_. Y’r so pushy.” Cisco grinned blearily.

Joe stroked through his hair, watching his eyes blink heavily and open a little narrower every time. He smiled to himself.

Truth be told he hadn’t thought much about it, but if something did happen to take Cisco out of his life...odds were good that’d be it for Joe, for any kind of relationship. He’d been alone a long damn time, and he never minded it. It was good for him, kept things simple, kept his focus on his kids and his work. It got him through the last two decades without complaint. He would go back to that, and that would take him through the next two decades. He didn’t need someone to be there.

He needed Cisco. He needed this easy, smiling, musical thing they’d found between them. If that wasn’t possible, he wasn’t interested.

It was strange to realize that consciously. He enjoyed being with Cisco. The calls and the kisses and the sleep deprivation, the feeding each other bites of overpriced creme brulee as they lounged together in a huge hotel jet tub. Dancing to Ella and fucking for slow, sweaty ages. He felt good at it, he felt like it was good for him.

What they had was perfect for who Joe was now. This man so much younger and smarter and stranger than him was perfect for Joe West, detective in his forties and father of two. Maybe if Cisco had been older or he had been younger, if the divorce and the twenty years of bachelorhood hadn’t happened the way they had, this wouldn’t have worked at all.

No logical reason why it worked now. But it did.

And if he lost it? Maybe someday someone unexpected would come along again in another few years. But they’d have to come find him, because he wouldn’t be looking.

He didn’t bother saying any of that to Cisco, though it might have been safe to right then when he was drugged and half-asleep. He just stroked Cisco’s hair and held on to his hand, and hummed a little melody that made him smile and sing in a quiet murmur when he realized what song it was. “ _‘I’d rather be with you, yeah yeah, oh I’d rather be with you…’”_

 

* * *

 

The ringing of his phone was starting to be a major annoyance. Joe pulled it from his pocket and scowled at the screen, but his heart thudded when he saw it was an unknown number.

He answered flatly. “West.”

“I dreamed you sang Bootsy songs to me.”

“Cisco?” He relaxed, smiling uncontrollably. “What are you doing awake?”

“They’re letting me out tomorrow, gotta wean myself back into the world bit by bit.” He sounded much clearer than he had the night before. But then Joe had spent most of the night before snoring in the chair beside his bed, so that wasn’t a very fair statement. “That means calling to bug you.”

Still, it made Joe’s smile grow, and the irritation melted away from him entirely. “Anytime,” he said sincerely.

“So I guess I bled all over my old phone? Caitlin just brought me this one, which...free phone, hey. Bright side. But save the number. You’re already 'Joe The Sex God' in my contacts, I expect an appropriate designation in yours.”

Joe opened his mouth to ask why he hadn’t just moved his old number over, but Hartley’s cool, terse voice in his head answered that before he could. “‘Some Kid’. Done and done.”

“I will kill you, don’t you dare.” Cisco sounded like he was laughing, though, in a careful kind of way that wasn’t very normal for him. Definitely still hurting. “Okay, I gotta hang up. Caitlin’s trying to look intimidating, and laughing hurts.”

Joe chuckled. “See you in a few hours. Get some rest.”

“Go fight crime, sex god.”

He lowered the phone when the call disconnected, and found himself smiling out at nothing.

At least until Eddie took a call at his desk, and his muffled curse in response caught Joe’s attention. He turned in his chair, waiting, and kept his phone in his hand to keep some trace of that call close to him.

Eddie hung up after a minute and drew in a breath. “Southside arrested Sarah Cheevers.”

 

* * *

 

She was exactly what he dreaded seeing. Skinny, shadowed eyes, rough living etched in lines around her face. Red-rimmed eyes, hunched shoulders. She wasn’t defensive, she was petrified. **  
**

Joe watched her move in to the small closet county considered a proper interview room. He glanced at Eddie, but like Joe he was as blank-faced and impervious as procedure indicated they should be. Only around his eyes did his hate of this whole process show.

Joe imagined he himself looked much the same way.

She stared at them both as she came in, but dropped her eyes fast. She sat in the chair by the door, her hands cuffed in front of her, but at least they hadn’t put her in the orange jumpsuit yet.

Joe cleared his throat. “My name is Joe West, this is Edward Thawne, we’re detectives in the major crimes division of the CCPD.”

Her eyes widened a bit when he said major crimes, otherwise she just nodded.

Joe went through the details of the case, date and time and sketchy details same as he’d give in court. He slid a piece of paper onto the table between them, and she reached out for it but her hand twitched and fell when she recognized a copy of the note she’d left behind.

There were a thousand tricks to getting a confession from a suspect. Most of the ones Joe used were standard, effective, and dishonest. Everything he had with her, the fingerprint, the security footage, the witnesses, were true and complete.

But he didn’t need to use any of them. She stared at that note and she looked up at him and she spoke for the first time. “Could you tell her I’m sorry?”

Joe watched her carefully. “Tell who, Miss Cheevers?”

“That woman, the one behind the counter. If I scared her. I didn’t want to scare anybody.”

Eddie waited until they had signed out of county and were in the parking lot headed for the car before he said anything that wasn’t strictly procedural. “Sometimes I hate my job.”

Joe wanted to agree with him, he really did. But there were a few things pressing down on him, Hartley Rathaway and Sarah Cheevers and Cisco in the hospital, and he had this feeling that if he gave into his feelings on any one of them they would all come crashing down on him.

So he got into the car and pointed them to the station. He never actually answered Eddie, but he knew Eddie didn’t really need him to.

 

* * *

 

He was too old to think absurd things about life not being fair.

Anybody who hit forty with any kind of mileage behind them knew damned well that life wasn't fair. Life was arbitrary and stupid. The people who got the most advantages were the people who didn’t deserve them, who took them for granted or used to them to do bad things to other people. The people who needed help the most were the ones he could never help.

So when he really thought about the idea that Hartley Rathaway might have simply skipped town after almost killing Cisco, and that Rathaway’s money and brains would keep him hidden as long as he wanted to stay hidden...when he compared that to Sarah Cheevers and her terrified eyes, a homeless and broken woman who didn’t quite manage to do a bad thing but intended to just long enough to be arrested as a criminal…

It was stupid to get mad. He knew it was stupid. Cops saw more of the unfair side of life than most people did. Everyone Joe met on the job was either criminal or having one of the worst days of their lives. Joe saw the pain and the stark unfairness of life every single damned day. It was so stupid to waste his energy getting furious about one example.

But he had to walk away from Singh when the captain told them the DA wasn’t planning to drop charges against Sarah. He had to step outside, look up into the sunshine of late afternoon, and remind himself that Cisco was getting out of the hospital, and things weren’t all bad everywhere.

It was funny. Since the explosion and Barry and the appearance of metahumans, his job had taken on a larger than life aspect that Joe was still trying to figure out his role in. Half the cases he’d worked on lately didn’t end in paperwork and arrests or bench warrants. They ended in a lot of unexplained phenomena, and trust that Barry and the group at STAR had done the right things for the right reasons.

Those things were related. The shit of his job and the rise of metas. Eddie had said it himself: so many huge public crimes going unresolved meant the people were grasping for justice in whatever form they could get it. Because Hartley Rathaway escaped after his showdown with The Flash - after nearly killing dozens of people who were all traumatized and wanting answers - Sarah Cheevers had to be arrested. The scales of justice at work, but not the way people thought. Not the way they’d been intended to work.

And yeah, he never answered Eddie that day but sometimes he hated his job too.

 

* * *

 

“You’re sad." **  
**

He looked up from his phone and sent a smile Cisco’s way when he realized he was wide awake and watching him. “I’m trying to respect my environment, that’s all.”

Cisco eyed him. “No, you’re not. You are miserable.”

Joe put his phone away mid-text. He’d asked Iris and Barry to text if they needed him while he was at the hospital, to respect the silence. And, honestly, he was starting to miss the buzz of a text coming in. He’d gotten to where he liked the sound of it.

“There’s things weighing on me,” he admitted when Cisco’s stare didn’t waver. The dosage of meds he was on must have been lowered again that day, because there was nothing glassy in his stare. He looked tired and hurting and a bit grumpy, but all there.

“Talk.”

“It’s work, it’s nothing you need to--”

“Did you or did you not give me a whole really killer speech back at that hotel about how you want to be here for me when I need it?”

Joe hesitated.

Cisco peered at him, surprisingly stern considering he was lying in a hospital bed, unshaven and disheveled. Also considering it was Cisco Ramon. “So either explain to me why that doesn’t work both ways or start talking.”

“Damn.” Joe cracked a smile unwittingly.

Cisco grinned. “Yeah? Convincing?”

“Impressive.”

“Good. I mean it.”

“I know.” He leaned in with a sigh, arching his back a little when it complained. Way too much time in that chair the last few days. Tomorrow, he told his complaining body. Cisco was getting out tomorrow. “You know I’m not going to be able to tell you everything about my work problems.”

“I think you and I have gone outside the lines of police protocol a few times already,” Cisco pointed out. He reached for Joe’s arm, and his fingers were warm but not feverish. “But whatever. You can tell me enough.”

Still he hesitated. One reason things had been so easy with Cisco from the start was that their lives really did intersect in the areas that someone who was outside of them couldn’t have known about and wouldn’t have understood. But this had nothing to do with time travel or super powers. This was strictly cop work. And it was the kind of case that brought up issues that had wider relevance.

So he wasn’t sure whether it was best to talk or best to keep silent. If he started letting out his doubts about the job, the badge, the idea of any kind of real justice, would he ever be able to stay quiet about them again? It would only take a few drops to open a faucet that maybe wouldn’t want to be turned off again.

“This is about that one case, isn’t it? The hypothetical thought-crime robbery?”

He met Cisco’s eyes for a moment, and smiled faintly. “Maybe.”

“Did you have to arrest him? Or, I mean, whoever? Hypothetically?”

Another nod. “You said you thought I’d be able to find a way to fix it. But there isn’t a way. It’s done. The DA’s insisting, and as much as I want to insert my personal opinions all over this case, once a perp’s arrested my involvement is barely anything. Not enough to affect the case either way, at least.”

He let out a breath, lacing his fingers through Cisco’s. And yeah, there it was, pressing on his throat to come out. He should have known he wouldn’t be able to shut it off once he started it.

“I’ve always been a cop. Twenty five years now, that’s what I’ve been. A cop, and a father. Those are the only two things that meant anything. Now the kids are grown, and being a father isn’t something I have to do anymore, it’s just something I am. Worse, when I do try to do, it keeps backfiring. Sometimes I think I’m making those kids’ lives worse trying to hang on to them.”

Cisco snorted softly, but didn’t interrupt.

“That leaves the work. And the work’s not enough. It never was. There were always...good days and bad days. Good cases and bad cases. I haven’t believed that the good guys always win since I was seven years old, but it’s supposed to at least even out. You know? Someone gets hurt, you catch the person who did it. It doesn’t undo the damage, but it prevents potential future hurt. And that’s something. That’s the least of what should happen.”

“I get the feeling this is about more than just that one case.”

Joe shrugged, but he reached out a brushed fingertips over the bandages still wrapped around Cisco’s neck. They weren’t as thick, but they were still there. There would be a scar, the doctor said. “If Hartley vanishes, even if you never have to deal with him again, it’s not justice. It’s not enough. He almost…”

Cisco squeezed his hand. “Almost.”

Joe drew in a breath. “You know what being a cop is? It’s rules. It’s having your hands tied in a thousand different ways. Letting the rich boy get away because he has the funds to do it. Arresting the homeless woman because she stepped half a foot out of line. So the world is Hartley’s to explore, you spend your life unable to forget he’s out there somewhere. And a woman who didn’t hurt anyone gets thrown in jail just long enough that she’ll lose the car she’s been living in and be worse off than she was when she was so desperate she thought about robbing the place to begin with. There aren’t winners anymore. The job, all I do is watch it happen, help it along. Plenty of bad cops out there, and the rules can be broken a thousand ways to hurt people. But helping them? Forget it. And I don’t know what to do about it anymore. I don’t know how to be anything but this, and this is...it’s letting me down.”

“Joe.”

There was a pause. Cisco shifted, like he wanted to sit up. But the bandages were tight around his stomach, and his next dose of meds must have been due because just the movement made him wince.

He sighed and lay back again. “When I said I trusted you to find some way to fix whatever was wrong, I wasn’t talking to Detective West. I didn’t think you’d be able to _cop_ your way out of whatever was happening. Hell, you know how I grew up, it was the same for you. There’s still part of me that doesn’t like being surrounded by cops even when I’m helping them out. I trust you to fix things because you’re you.”

Joe smiled faintly. “That’s sweet, really, but--”

“Okay, don’t call me sweet. I’m super hardcore. And I’m not done. I dig that you’re a cop. It’s kind of hot, really, despite childhood issues. Or maybe because of them. That’s a whole different therapy session. Point is, if Joe the cop can’t figure out how to police things until they’re better, and it matters to him that things get better, then I bet Joe the man is going to figure out a way.”

Joe frowned, watching their hands. 

“See, you act like being a good dad and a good cop is what made you the person you are, which is totally backwards. Barry looks at you like you’re his moral compass because you are. Not because you tucked him in at night, but because just walking around day to day you’re like the single best human being that’s ever walked this earth, and he’s totally smart so he sees that.”

Joe chuckled.

“If it’s an exaggeration it’s not much of one. Not in the world I know. You made _me_ better.”

He lifted his gaze to Cisco’s face, and the openness there was almost unnerving. Cisco never had bothered much trying to conceal his feelings, but he was full-on broadcasting right then. the look in his eyes was something very much like adoration.

“I know people aren’t supposed to say things like that. But you did. You made me better. You treated me the way you think people ought to treat each other, and that was enough to make me realize that what I’d been used to was pretty shitty. You dig me. Which makes it way easier for me to dig myself. And it wasn’t a badge that did that, it was you. Do you know when I really sat back and thought for the first time about Hartley and how fucked up he was? After I went to your house and ate red beans and rice.”

Joe smiled to remember. Their first date, if he wanted to be revisionist. And he kind of did. He’d been in denial for a while after that first night, but it had been a special thing.

Cisco returned the smile. “You listened when I talked and laughed at my stupid jokes, and we were just in the same space doing...whatever, washing your dishes even, and it was really nice. Better than any moment I ever had with him. And you were just being you. You didn’t have any kind of feelings about me back then.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Cisco blinked, but his smile grew. “Well. Whatever. I’m irresistible, not your fault. You see what I’m saying, though.”

“Yeah.” And he did. The idea had been too simplistic to stick at first. There were a lot of good men out there and a lot of bad things happened all the same, so he didn’t see that him being good was enough to help anything.

But when Cisco said it it hit home. He had helped Cisco, a little at least, even if it was just showing him that someone could care about him just the way he was. And if his kids were too independent and strong to need him anymore, he raised them to be that way. Maybe they still needed him, if only to keep on being the man who raised them.

His job tied his hands. Justice wasn’t fair. But Joe West didn’t help people because he was a cop. He became a cop because it was a way to help people. And if the badge kept his hands tied, he’d just see what he could do when he took it off.

A thought hit him, sudden, from one thought to the next. He sat up, mouth twitching upward, and he squeezed Cisco’s hand.

“Mind if I go make a call?”

Whatever showed on Joe’s face was enough to make Cisco’s smile beam out, bright and big and more like him than he’d looked in days. “If I get too bored I’ll make a break for it, so.”

“I’ll hurry.”

He leaned in, meaning to press a quick kiss to Cisco’s temple. But Cisco leaned back and tilted up and eyed him expectantly, and Joe chuckled against his lips as he kissed him.

In the corridor he hit the first number on his speed dial, smiling to himself. He’d told Cisco that there didn’t seem to be ways to break the rules in order to help people. But he was wrong. And he had just the contact that would help him do it.

“I don’t even know how to answer this call. I’m still mad at you, but Cisco.”

“Cisco’s fine.” He grinned at the sound of Iris’s voice. “And I’m gonna give you time with all that, I swear. You come to me and tell me how to fix this when you’re ready.”

“Sounds...good.” She sounded suspicious. “So why the call, dad?”

“Well, I’ve taken a recent vow of complete honesty, and it turns out I know a pretty big story about a certain local billionaire’s son who has fled the state instead of facing an attempted murder charge. Figured there might be a reporter somewhere around who might be interested, since nobody at the DA’s office seems to be worrying themselves about it.”

From the squeak in his ear, she seemed to be interested.

Hartley Rathaway had apparently lost his family, his career, his reputation. Wasn’t enough. He was about to lose his anonymity, too. If he wanted to run and hide, then he was going to have to hide well.

As Iris barked at her laptop to load faster, begging him to hang on, to wait, she just had to get it all down - as if she didn’t know where to find him - Joe smiled to realize that the same anonymous source that fed the Picture News tomorrow’s headlines about the Rathaway story could just as easily ask Iris to be in the seats at the county courthouse when the bullshit charges against a homeless woman who badly needed help were read out.

By the time he made it back into Cisco’s room, Cisco’s eyes were half-closed and his new phone was face-down on his chest. But he stirred when Joe came in. “You are rotten at hurrying.”

“I know. But your suffering here alone was worth it.”

Cisco studied his face, and grinned after a moment. “Looks like it. You okay?”

“I am. How about you?”

“You kidding? Look at me. Party’s in room...whatever room this is, obviously.” He yawned, and though it made him wince he smiled lazily up at Joe all the same. “Hey. Um. I keep putting this off, but Caitlin’s super good at nagging via text so I told her I’d say something.”

“Uh huh?” Joe sat on the edge of his bed, grinning down at him, wondering if Cisco had any idea that everything he’d said about Joe making him better went both ways.

“I get out tomorrow, I guess, and--”

“If having Barry around is a plus, my place. Though there are stairs to think about. If you want privacy, I’m good with staying at yours.”

Cisco blinked, and his eyes went glassy. But he smiled like he was trying to seem casual about it. “I’ve got a cat that can’t feed herself, much as she wants to act like she doesn’t need me.”

“Yours, then. I’ll pack a suitcase.”

“Docs say I should be recovered pretty fast if I take it easy, so. Should just be a couple of weeks.”

“Should be.” Joe smiled, unconvinced. Unconcerned either way. He didn’t see it as a couple of weeks. He saw their clothes being washed together and their toiletries mixing and their lives combining in ways that neither of them would feel like putting an end to once a couple of weeks was up.

Cisco’s smile was grateful, but his eyes were tired, and Joe leaned in to kiss him and sat down in his horrible chair

A month ago he was a dad and a cop and that was all. He was living as quiet a life as a man could in the midst of metas and chaos. He was cooking for himself and sleeping alone at night, fearing the idea of complications, and feeling content with a silence that he hadn’t realized was pressing down on him constantly.

Now he was...none of that, and all of it. A man, first and foremost. A man who was sometimes a lousy dad and a bad cop but was a good man all the same. He wasn’t alone, and there wasn’t silence, and when Cisco smiled at him and told him he could fix the world he believed it, and he sure as hell did his best.

He let Cisco in one night for dinner, and that was that. Cisco wasn’t leaving, and Joe wasn’t letting him go, and it was a strange thing to be old as he was and reassessing his entire life, but what the hell, right?

He leaned over to recover Cisco’s phone and set it on the table beside his bed. He reached out and slipped his fingers through limp dark hair, and he smiled.

What the hell.  
  


THE END


End file.
